


Origin Story

by Scribe, Seascribe



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 01:38:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2410280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At seventeen, Ray Kowalski gets his ear pierced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If Then](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1347397) by [Scribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe). 



> This fic would not have ever gotten finished if not for Seascribe, who offered endless encouragement through the whole process, and who also wrote all the porn. Be very thankful for her. Thanks also to Aria for betaing, and to everyone who got to talking and brainstorming about the original snippet that inspired this AU.
> 
> Content notes: homophobia, bi invisibility

It starts like this:

They invite Ray Kowalski over for dinner.

Having him over isn't unusual, but the invitation itself is. Usually they say things like, _got any plans tonight?_ or _let's go through the bolero a couple more times and then we can take a break and get pizza_ , or _I'm making that risotto you like for dinner_.

This invitation is more formal, and certainly farther in advance than usual. Stella's going to go crazy if she has to wait all week without even knowing if he's coming, though, and Ray stands a good chance of losing his nerve altogether, so she has to tip their hand a little. He gives her an odd look when she asks, but that can't be helped, and what matters is that he says yes.

They decide on Friday for dinner. Date night, she thinks, a little hysterically. She doesn't go quite so far as to dress up, but she can't stop herself from brushing her hair and touching up her makeup, even though she's not the one he's interested in. Well, not the one he _might_ be interested in, technically, but she's pretty confident he's attracted to Ray Vecchio. An expert on the courting behavior of all species of Ray, that's her.

The Ray she married is stirring risotto in the kitchen. He gives her a nervous smile when she comes into the room, and she goes over and kisses him.

"We don't have to go through with this, you know," she says. "We can just have him over for dinner and not ask. Or we can put it off until another day."

"Second thoughts?" he asks. She takes a moment to think about it.

"No, not really, just nervous. You?"

"Nervous too. I know you think he's interested, but I’m not so sure. And even if he is that doesn't mean he'll say yes."

That's mostly what Stella's worried about, but she just says, "So maybe he'll say no. Maybe it'll be a little awkward for a while, but we'll get over it, and it'll be fine." She takes his free hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over his wedding ring. "And maybe he'll say yes. That could be worth the risk, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, it could."

The doorbell rings. They both jump.

"This is kind of insane, you know," says Ray, wide-eyed, and goes to answer it.

Dinner is pretty stilted. The three of them usually have no trouble talking late into the night, but she and Ray are both too nervous to really act normal, and they end up struggling through small talk and awkward pauses.

"Okay," says Ray Kowalski after half an hour or so. "Please just tell me what's going on."

"What makes you think something's going on?" asks Ray, which only gets him an unimpressed look.

"You're not getting divorced, are you?"

"What? No," says Stella.

"Pregnant?"

"You know I've never wanted kids."

"Wanting and having don't always go together."

She raises her eyebrows and takes a pointed sip of her wine.

"Okay, fine. Uh, you're moving? Far away?"

"You're never going to guess it," says Ray.

"So tell me then! You two look like you're about to jump out of your skin. Skins. Whatever. Oh my god, is somebody sick?"

"No one's sick," says Stella. "It's nothing bad, I promise."

"You're sure acting like it," he mutters, but he props his elbows on the table and waits. Stella looks over at Ray Vecchio; it's really his question to ask.

"So," he says. "We, ah- look, first, I want to make sure you know that this isn't a big deal. It's just...a thing, and whatever happens, you're our friend and that's most important. Well, you're Stella's friend, obviously, but I hope you're mine too."

"Sure, Vecchio, I'm your friend." They're both looking increasingly nervous. Stella resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"Okay, that's good. Um. Wait, first, you're not seeing anybody, are you?"

"No? You know I'm not. Did you think I was keeping it a secret or something?"

"No, no, I just thought, maybe if it was something new, you hadn't gotten around to telling us yet, I just wanted to check-"

"What he's trying to say is, can he blow you?" Stella interrupts.

There's a moment of dead silence. That was maybe a mistake; she knows she can get direct to the point of rudeness sometimes when she's anxious, but otherwise the waffling was going to go on until someone died of nerves, and she really didn't want to sit through that.

To his credit, Ray Vecchio's the first person to speak.

"I wasn't going to put it exactly like that," he says, with a glance at her that manages to be amused over the trepidation, "but yeah, that's pretty much what I was trying to say. I'd like to blow you. Interested?"

"You guys are serious," manages Ray Kowalski, more of an incredulous statement than an actual question. She nods confirmation anyway. He looks back and forth between them a couple times and then down at the table, fingertips pressed to his forehead in a familiar gesture that means he's trying to wrestle his thoughts into actual words.

"Stell, you know I hate straight guys experimenting on me," he finally says, sounding a little shaky. Ray Vecchio leans forward to catch his eye.

"It's not an experiment, and I'm...not straight," he says. She squeezes his knee under the table; that's probably the first time he's ever said it out loud. "I promise, this isn't because I wanted to see what it was like with a guy and you just happened to be convenient. It's because I want to know what it's like, with _you_. I have the best wife in the world, I don't need to try anything else just because it's different. But I want you."

He's doing that thing where he drops his voice and looks at you so intently that it's like he's forgotten that the rest of the world even exists. It sends a little frisson of heat down Stella's spine even though it's not directed at her.

"Really?" says Ray Kowalski, and oh, he's caught, she was so absolutely right about this. She can almost feel the air crackling between them.

"Really," says Ray.

"I want to watch," she puts in, because there's no sense in letting this go any farther if that's a deal-breaker. Ray Kowalski's gaze snaps to her. She's suddenly reminded of the way he used to look when she would straddle him in the back of his car in high school, desperate and wild and a little bit scared.

"I don't have to be involved or anything," she says. She's never asked about his memories of the teenaged almost-sex they had before he came out, doesn't know if he was repulsed or confused or just at the age where horniness trumped everything and it didn’t matter who he was with. "It can all be between you two, that's fine, I just want to be in the room."

He lets out a strangled laugh. "Right, that makes sense. He is your husband, after all."

They all look at each other for a moment, at an impasse. Everything's on the table. He hasn't said yes, but he quite conspicuously hasn't said no, either.

"Sorry for springing this on you," says Ray Vecchio after a moment.

"Yeah, well you were right, I wouldn't have guessed. Don’t really see any way you could've eased into it."

"That's true. You don't have to answer right now," Ray adds. "It's an open offer, if you want some time to think."

"Yeah, okay, that'd be good, time to think," says Ray Kowalski, shoving himself away from the table in a sudden whirlwind of movement. "Definitely time to think. I'll, uh, I'll let you know. Thanks for dinner and all. Yeah."

He's out the door in maybe ten seconds.

"Well," says Stella into the stunned silence. "That could have gone worse."

***

Looked at another way, it starts like this:

At seventeen Ray Kowalski gets his ear pierced. Just the one ear, the one that means something. He has the money saved from working weekends for his uncle's moving company, lugging other people's furniture up and down for minimum wage and a couple bottles of beer that no one cares he's not old enough to drink.

It's his senior year of high school. He's been saving the money to buy Stella something special when he takes her to prom in the spring, maybe a necklace or something, he doesn't really know what it'll be but he's got the thought and the cash and a plan to ask her sister for help picking it out. Sometimes he daydreams about making it a ring, but even he knows that's nuts; they've been skirting around something since they got old enough to really notice each other, sure, but she's only technically been his girlfriend since the summer, and seventeen's too young for that anyway. A necklace it is. Maybe a bracelet, if that's what Stella's sister says is right.

That's the plan, anyway. Then in March Stella decides that maybe they’re going a little too fast, maybe they should take a break for a little while, try other things before they lose the chance. She starts hanging out with Rob Basinger, who's from a better neighborhood than Ray and wants to go to Stanford in the fall. She doesn't ignore Ray or anything, Stella's better than that, it's just that they're suddenly friends and nothing more and it leaves him reeling. One day she turns down a ride home from school in the GTO to walk with Rob, and Ray goes the wrong way out of the parking lot, downtown to the tattoo parlor instead of toward his house.

The guy with the piercing gun looks sympathetic, which makes Ray want to punch him.

"You sure about this, kid?" he asks.

"Yeah," says Ray, jiggling his knee up and down. It helps a little that the piercing guy is kind of hot. Too old for him, but that doesn't mean Ray can't appreciate the tattoos spiraling over his biceps and peeking out from the collar of his shirt. He's got earrings, too. Maybe he had one like the one Ray's getting, once upon a time, but if so its meaning is lost in the row of studs that march all the way up his ear.

Ray’s known that he’s into guys for a couple of years now. It’s just never seemed all that important, not when he has Stella. So what if he sometimes thinks a guy is hot? It isn’t much different from thinking about another girl in school, or a movie star, or anyone else. None of it could distract him from her.

Now that Stella’s done with him, though, everything is different. Ray knows that he likes guys and girls both, sure, but he also knows that he has to pick which life to lead. Either you’re queer or you’re not, that’s just the way the world works. And it’s not that Stella’s the only girl he’s ever thought about, but she’s the only one in the world who could make him want to choose that life.

"I'm sure," Ray says. "I'll show you the money first, if you want."

"I’m not worried about the money," says the guy. He doesn't push it any more, though, just gets out a tray of earrings for Ray to pick from. He chooses a small silver hoop. Simple enough, but definitely noticeable.

It hurts, but not too much. Afterward the guy gives him instructions for keeping it clean and tells him that if he takes the earring out it should heal up enough that nobody will notice it within a couple of weeks. He says thanks, but he’s made his choice, no turning back now. On the drive home he starts to feel kind of nauseous. No way is this going over well with his parents, there’s no chance of that. It’s just a question of exactly how bad it’ll be.

Bad, as it turns out.

The worst part isn’t the shouting match after his father comes home, even though it makes him too angry to even defend himself, so angry that the words just won’t come. The worst part is that his mom doesn’t know what it means. She’s worried and a little disapproving about the piercing itself, how it makes him look less respectable, how he went and did it on a whim, but she doesn’t _understand_. His dad has to explain it to her. He does it in words that Ray knew he was setting himself up to hear, but he never wanted to hear them from his own father.

His mom doesn’t yell. When it finally sinks in she goes pale and and then she starts to cry, and she won’t look at him, and that’s it, that’s all Ray can take. He grabs his keys from the table and a hat from the closet and slams out the front door. His father yells after him, _don’t you dare leave this house_ , but Ray has the GTO and he’s never been more thankful for it in his life.

It’s a winter hat, brown wool, a little out of season but long enough to cover his ears if he pulls it down all the way. He parks outside Stella’s house and puts it on, double-checking himself in the rearview mirror before he gets out of the car. It makes the new piercing throb even though he tries to be careful.

Stella’s mom answers the door.

“Hi, Mrs. DuBois,” he says, not quite managing to meet her eyes. “Is Stella in?”

“She has a friend over right now.” Sure enough, he can hear Stella’s voice filtering in from the living room, and a guy laughing. It’s not hard to guess who.

“Can I talk to her for just a minute?” he asks.

“I’d think she’d have a minute for you,” says Stella’s mom with a little smile. Stella’s parents don’t especially like him, but he’s been around long enough that at least they’re used to him.

She leaves the door open when she goes inside, but Ray can’t tell if that’s an invitation or just an oversight, so he waits on the stoop. He’s been inside Stella’s house a thousand times, but it suddenly seems like uncertain territory again. Everything does.

“Hi,” says Stella, leaning against the door frame, and Ray can’t figure out what to say to her. It all seems too big to explain. Instead he just takes off the hat, gingerly pulling it over his ear, and waits.

She spots the earring immediately, he can see it on her face, and then her eyes fly up to his.

“Oh my god, Ray,” she says. He can’t quite read her expression, but it’s not anger or disgust, and she reaches out to grab his arm. “Have you been home?”

“Came from there,” he says, and until it’s coming out of his mouth he doesn’t entirely mean to add, “I don’t want to go back.”

“Okay,” says Stella. She says it simply, surely, like it’s an easy thing, and the fight goes out of Ray all at once. She comes out to the stoop to hug him and he hangs on tight, burying his face in her shoulder and trying not to think about how she might be the only person in the whole world who’s on his side anymore. He isn’t quite crying- he doesn’t want to give that satisfaction to his father, or the tattoo parlor guy, or anyone else- but he’s shaking a little, and it takes him a long time to get his breathing under control.

Stella just holds onto him, pressing her cheek against his, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. A couple of cars go by. Ray tries not to think about what the two of them must look like.

“Wait in the car for a minute, okay?” she says, once he pulls himself together. “Let me talk to my parents, you can stay here.”

“You sure? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I can handle it,” she says, and gives him a little push in the direction of the GTO.

He sits in the driver’s seat, toying with his hat but not putting it on. Stella disappears back inside. After a minute she comes out again, opening the door for Rob. They talk on the stoop for a moment before he waves and walks away, casting a glance toward the GTO that Ray can’t read at this distance. There’s a part of him that feels a little bit of vicious satisfaction at that, but mostly it’s just relief; he hasn’t really known where he stood since Stella broke up with him, but apparently she’ll still kick out the guy she’s dating for him if he needs her, and if that’s not evidence that she still cares he doesn’t know what is.

He spends the night in the DuBois guest room. He has no idea what Stella tells her parents to make them agree, though later he figures that it might have just been the truth. They’re the only people whose opinion of him goes up after he gets the earring, probably because they stop worrying that he’s going to get her pregnant or convince her to elope or whatever, so that’s something.

School the next day is kind of like hell. Stella comes and sits with him at lunch, at least, which doesn’t stop the other guys from calling insults from across the room, but it makes them easier to ignore. To his surprise, Rob Basigner takes the seat next to her without a moment’s hesitation. Maybe he’s just doing it to get into her pants, but even if he is he’s still sacrificing his dignity for her, and that counts for something. He’s perfectly willing to strike up a conversation with Ray, too, so maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Not good enough for Stella, obviously, but nobody’s good enough for Stella.

Ray gets out at the end of the day with a black eye and a couple nasty bruises, but he’s feeling good. He and Stella drive down by the lake and just talk for a while. He’s riding high on adrenaline, thinking maybe he’ll take up boxing, learn to land a couple more punches of his own when the assholes come after him. Stella quizzes him about which of the guys in school have caught his eye, and it turns out that they have pretty similar taste. He tries not to let it sting too much when she talks about wanting guys who aren’t him.

His dad is out when he gets home, but his mom makes him put a bag of frozen peas on his eye and fusses over him like he got a limb chopped off or something instead of taking a couple of punches. He tries his best to sit still and let her, because somewhere along the way he clues into the fact that she isn’t actually angry, she’s just terrified of what’s going to happen to him. Staying out all night and coming back with a black eye probably didn’t help.

He makes it to graduation in his own home, barely, by pretty much not speaking to his father. He doesn’t quite get thrown out after that, but it’s clear enough that there’s no place for him. He spends a while crashing on couches and then moves into Stella’s college apartment. The rent’s too high for him, but Stella says she doesn’t care and he’s basically worn out every other welcome he’s got, so it’s either swallow his pride or sleep in the car. He promises he’ll pay her back and starts looking for work.

It’s a good time of year for the moving business, but his uncle doesn’t call him anymore. Ray spends a while hanging onto a flier from when the police academy came recruiting to his graduating class. In the end, though, he figures that there’s no point in getting himself shot because no one wants to work with a queer cop. He winds up with a job at a nearby auto body shop instead. The guys there give him shit about the earring too, but none of it’s life or death, so he manages.

He and Stella get serious about their ballroom competition and bring home a handful of trophies. Stella decides she wants to be a lawyer, which surprises no one at all. She dates a couple of guys.

Eventually, so does Ray.

***

One part of the relationship starts like this:

The first time Ray Vecchio asks her out she barely even notices. She's at the 2-7 for a case that he's not even on and he introduces himself by the coffee machine, tries to corner her into small talk. It's not an unusual kind of occurrence in her day. She's a little bit annoyed by it, but mostly she just doesn't care. At least he lets her go gracefully when she says that no, she doesn't want to go to place that serves better coffee with him, which is more than can be said of some of the men she's had to work with.

The second time Ray Vecchio asks her out they've at least had a few conversations first. He's a witness on one of her cases, though a pretty minor and straightforward one. He knows his stuff and isn't nervous, just gets on the stand and answers her questions like he does it every day, or at least every couple of months. Sometimes cops are useful.

She wins the case. He asks if she'll go to dinner with him to celebrate and she tells him she has plans, which is true; there's a competition coming up and she promised Ray they'd have a practice-and-pizza night. Vecchio tells her that they can celebrate any time she's free.

"Look," she says, exasperated, "give it a rest. If I was interested in dating a guy just because they think a blonde in a business suit is hot, I'd never have to pay for my own dinner again. You don't even know me."

"Actually, it's the way you dismantled Goodwin that I thought was hot."

She frowns. The last time she'd been up against Goodwin had been March, and she's pretty sure Vecchio hadn't been involved.

"The Leibowitz case?" she asks.

"Yeah. Not my collar, but I did some of the legwork, so I thought I'd come see how it turned out. And watch you make Goodwin cry, of course."

"It was pretty good, wasn't it?"

"Amazing, I'd say. Does that mean you'll reconsider dinner?"

"You still don't know me."

"Well, that's the point of a date, isn't it? Spend some time, get to know each other, see if it might go somewhere."

She rolls her eyes. "Vecchio. Take a hint."

"Okay, okay," he says, putting his hands up. "Hint taken. Congratulations on the case. I'll see you around."

"Thank you," says Stella, and turns to go.

"The business suit is hot too!" he calls after her. She shakes her head but doesn't turn around, because no way is she giving him the gratification of seeing that she's smiling.

The third time Ray Vecchio asks her out, he doesn't. He's in her building, though she has no idea why- hopefully not to arrest anyone- and catches her lugging a crate of files up to her office.

"Can I help you with that?" he asks, falling into step with her. She shrugs.

"If you like." It's not like she actually wants to carry it all the way upstairs, and she's in no way above taking advantage of a little misplaced chivalry. If he wants to carry her files that's his prerogative, and if she doesn't want to go out with him afterward that's hers.

Except she's not totally sure that she doesn't. She hasn't suddenly fallen in love with him or anything, but the fact of the matter is that it's been _ages_ since she had sex. She hasn't really put a lot of effort into it; it's easier to go out looking when Ray's with her, but he's happily coupled up for once. And if that wasn't bad enough, he's finally succeeded in persuading his boyfriend that maybe they could try switching positions, so now she has to listen to Ray rhapsodizing about how much he loves getting fucked and it's really, really getting to her.

By the time they get up to her office she's made up her mind to say yes. Vecchio's right there, and she already knows he's interested, and he doesn't actually work with her so it won't be a big deal if it ends up a little awkward. Plus, he's kind of charming in his own way, and it's certainly no hardship following him up the stairs.

He doesn't ask, though. He just puts the box down on her desk and straightens his shirt, trying to hide the fact that he's out of breath.

"There you go," he says. "One box of very important papers, or so I assume."

"At least moderately important. Thank you."

"Anytime," he says, and turns to go. It's so unexpected that she only barely manages to stop him in time.

"What, no dinner proposal?" she asks. He blinks down at her hand on his arm and then back up at her.

"You weren't interested," he says, sounding a little unsure. That's not _I'm seeing someone_ , so she reaches around him to shut the door and twitch the blinds over the window closed.

"Uh-" he starts. She cuts him off with a kiss, up on her tiptoes even though she's wearing heels because she hadn't quite realized how tall he is. He freezes. After a moment, though, his hands curl warm around her waist, steadying her and rubbing little circles over her hipbones with his thumbs, and that's- that's really nice. And he kisses her back, and that's good too, more than good, this was definitely an excellent plan.

Eventually they have to breathe. Stella settles back down on her heels and grins; he looks stunned.

"I changed my mind," she informs him.

"Right," he says. "How's Friday?"

"Friday's great." She fishes around her desk for a stack of business cards and hands him one. "Call me?"

"Count on it."

She closes the door behind him, and then goes back and raises the window shade so it doesn't look quite so suspicious. Vecchio's doing a little dance down the hallway. She leans her head against the door and laughs right out loud.

***

Another part of the relationship starts like this:

Ray’s been dating Stella for just under three weeks when he goes to his first ballroom dance competition. Eventually they’ll become a fixture in his life, but this first time he has no idea what to expect. Stella’s nowhere to be found, of course, off getting ready, so Ray navigates the crowds of people on his own. The ticket waiting under his name guides him to a seat on the aisle. He’s early, so he ends up making forgettable conversation with the guy next to him. His name is Nate, he’s a baker, he doesn’t dance but he’s been to a lot of competitions as a spectator. Ray’s kind of skeptical about that, but the lights go down before he can ask.

Ray doesn’t know anything about ballroom. He has no idea how it’s scored or judged, can’t tell which of the couples are good or bad, doesn’t even know the difference between any of the dances. He learns a grand total of one thing that night, which is this: Stella is a _goddess._

He knows that she’s graceful in everyday life, but that’s nothing compared to seeing her on the dance floor. She and her partner- Ray Kowalski, presumably, who Ray’s heard about but never met- make every movement look fluid and easy and effortless, and every step and curve of her body is breathtaking. Ray can’t tear his eyes away. He doesn’t even glance at any of the other couples.

Afterward he mills around for a while, crinkling the plastic on the flowers he brought, listening to the people around him discussing technicalities in what might as well be a different language. Eventually the dancers start to spill out into the crowd. He spots Stella immediately, looking radiant and almost foreign in a flaring green dress and more makeup than he’s ever seen her wear, her hair pulled back in some kind of elaborate twist. He pushes his way over.

“You came!” she cries when she catches sight of him, as if there was any doubt that he would. “What did you think?”

"You were incredible," he says fervently. He offers her the flowers, and she laughs and gives him a quick kiss before taking them. He has to stop himself from holding on; not-quite-three-weeks hasn't been enough time for him to get used to kissing her, to be able to do it casually. It still sends a little shiver through him every time, and he has to blink himself back into focus to see her lowering her face to the bouquet.

"Thank you," she says, "these are beautiful."

"Not as beautiful as you," he tells her. She gives him a look that's trying to say _really, Ray?_ but her eyes are dancing and he can tell she's pleased. He loves that he's getting to know that look, that particular expression she has when he's being ridiculous and she finds it charming against her will.

She starts to say something else, but Ray Kowalski chooses that moment to appear out of the crowd, wrapping his arms around her from behind and pressing a kiss to her cheek. She laughs, batting him off, and Ray does his best to keep his expression neutral. From the way Kowalski's eyes narrow over Stella's shoulder, he hasn't quite managed it.

"Ray, meet Ray; Ray, meet Ray," she says, not bothering to hide her amusement. They shake hands. Kowalski doesn't quite do that asshole thing where he tries to break Ray's fingers, but it's a pretty strong handshake all the same.

"I've heard a lot about you," Ray says.

"Same here."

"At least some of it good, I hope."

Kowalski doesn't say anything to that, just quirks an eyebrow. He's changed clothes, unlike Stella, and his whole demeanor is a little bit different than Ray expected. On the dance floor he'd been calm and competent and smooth, but up close there's a sense of coiled energy under his skin, a sharp edge to his smile. Something in the back of Ray's mind is reading him as dangerous, but he can't tell if it's coming from his cop instincts or the part of him that's jealous over Stella. She's assured him that she and Kowalski are just friends, but just because she's not looking for more doesn't mean Kowalski isn't. Ray would bet his arm that Kowalski wants her. He wonders if Stella knows.

"Play nice," she says, elbowing Kowalski.

"I’m always nice," he tells her, then turns to Ray with an overly polite smile.

"Did you like the show?"

"Yeah," says Ray, and figures it can't hurt to add, "you're a great dancer."

Kowalski narrows his eyes.

"You know a lot about ballroom?"

"Not a thing. But Stella was incredible, and I figure you must at least be decent to keep up with her, or she'd drop you."

It's a half-truth at best- it doesn't take a background in ballroom dance to see the connection the two of them had out there, the chemistry- but he doesn't feel like bringing that up right now.

To his surprise, Kowalski laughs, hackles going down a little.

"Good answer," he says.

"Ray's really the better dancer," Stella tells him. "You just can't tell because his whole job is making me look good."

"Nah, you do that on your own," Kowalski says fondly. Ray's just starting to think that Stella _must_ know he's into her- she’s pretty smart and he’s pretty obvious- when Kowalski spots someone in the crowd who makes his whole face light up.

"Nate!" he calls, waving, and Ray turns to see his seatmate from earlier dodging his way over. Kowalski's grin makes him look like an excited kid. It's a startling difference from the smirk he's been giving Ray.

"You looked great out there," Nate says, and- wow, okay, pulls Kowalski into a serious kiss. Ray blinks. He doesn't know how he misread the situation quite that badly. Nobody else seems to be taking much notice, though it is a dance competition, so maybe they're all used to that sort of thing. He looks away, uncomfortable, and catches Stella watching him levelly.

A little warning would have been nice, Ray thinks. God knows Kowalski comes up in conversation enough; Stella could have at least mentioned in passing that he was gay, given Ray a chance to prepare himself for the sight of Kowalski sucking face with another guy two minutes after they'd been introduced.

When they finally break apart Nate turns to Stella, saying,

"You were wonderful too, of course."

"Did you think so? The foxtrot felt off the entire time, I don't know what it was."

The two of them slip into polite chatter about the dances and the judging which Ray doesn't follow at all. Kowalski doesn't participate, just fixes Ray with this look that says _you wanna make something of it?_ as loud and clear as if he'd shouted it. It occurs to him suddenly that Stella didn’t warn him on purpose. It's a test; she wanted him to be surprised, to see how he'd react. He'd bet that anybody who jeers at Kowalski doesn't get any more dates with Stella.

That makes it easier to take Kowalski's glaring, to just put his hands on his hips and raise his eyebrows instead of taking issue. After a minute Kowalski eases off and says,

"Sorry, forgot introductions. Vecchio, this is my boyfriend, Nate."

"We've met," both of them say, but they shake hands again anyway.

"Our seats were next to each other," Nate explains.

"Oh, that makes sense," says Stella. "We got the tickets at the same time. Well, officially then. Ray; Nate McClure. Nate, my boyfriend Ray."

"Boyfriend?" repeats Ray. They've been dating, yes, but only in the sense that they've gone on several dates. He figured things were moving in that direction if he was lucky, but they haven't actually talked about it.

"If that's okay," says Stella with a hopeful smile. He wants to kiss her senseless, but he settles for squeezing her hand.

"It's so much more than okay."

"I'm glad," she says, squeezing back.

"Get a room, you two," says Kowalski, but he sounds more amused than anything.

"You're one to talk," Stella retorts. She rubs her thumb over Ray's knuckles, which shouldn't be enough to take his breath away but it absolutely is.

"Welcome to the madhouse," says Nate. "I hope you're not the jealous type, it takes a crowbar to get these two apart."

"Hey, there are plenty of things we do privately," says Kowalski, in a low tone that makes it very clear what sort of thing he's referencing.

"Thank god for that," says Nate. "You think maybe we should explore what a few of those are?"

"Oh my god, keep it down until you're in the parking lot at least," Stella complains, laughing.

"We usually prefer to keep it _up_ ," says Kowalski with an exaggerated leer. She swats him.

"You get where I’m coming from, right?" Nate says to Ray, keeping his voice low. "It's the dancing. They're desensitized or something, they don't get how sexy it is, but I’m always desperate for Ray to fuck me by the time these things are over. It's something about the hips, I think."

"Uh," says Ray. Nate winks at him, which makes Ray wonder if he's doing his own make-the-straight-guy-uncomfortable test. If he is, he's succeeding.

(He's right about the dancing, though. Ray's been fantasizing helplessly about Stella riding him since the second number. It's definitely something in the hips.)

"All right, all right," Stella's saying. "You guys get out of here before you get a public indecency charge. Ray, you have your car, right? Can I ride with you? I drove in with Ray- oh, that's going to get confusing."

"Now she notices," says Kowalski.

"Of course I’ll drive you," says Ray. She grins at him and runs her thumb over his knuckles again, in a way that he's pretty sure means he's getting invited up to her apartment. Kowalski rolls his eyes.

"And you think we're obvious," he complains.

"Shut up," Stella tells him, letting go of Ray's hand to give Kowalski a quick hug. "Good job tonight. Ray, let me just get my things, I'll be right out."

"Are you changing? Don't change," Ray tells her seriously. She laughs and gives him another quick kiss before slipping off through the crowd.

"Well," says Nate, after a brief awkward silence, "it was nice to meet you."

"You too," says Ray, shaking his hand again and then Kowalski's. They're a couple steps away before something makes Ray call out,

"Hey, Kowalski." Both of them turn. Ray gestures to himself. "So? Do I pass?"

Kowalski makes a show of looking him up and down.

"You'll do," he says finally. Ray's surprised at how relieved he feels.

"Just make sure you make her happy," says Kowalski.

"If I don't, you feel free to take a swing at me," Ray says. "I'll stand still for it."

Kowalski grins suddenly, that delighted little kid expression that lights up his whole face.

"Nah," he says, "no need. Stella'll do that herself."

***

None of them realize it at the time, but this might actually be the beginning:

Stella gets home late, to a message from Ray saying he's on stakeout and not to wait for him. That's not too unusual; she heats up leftover chicken for dinner and sets up some of her never-ending paperwork in front of the TV, turning the local news down low in the background. Mrs. Vecchio- Stella knows to call her Ma in person, but hasn't quite switched in her head- does it too, when Ray's out late. When you love a cop you never quite stop worrying.

Ray comes home just after eight and heads straight for the shower, mumbling something about being covered in meat. She knows better than to ask. He looks fine, if grossed out, and once he's clean and settled she's sure to hear about it in vivid detail. Recounting their days to each other has always been interesting, given their jobs, but since Ray's acquired a new Canadian partner his stories have been almost beyond belief.

The shower's still running when the doorbell rings about twenty minutes later. Stella mutes the TV and goes over to check the peephole: Ray Kowalski.

When she opens the door he give her a resigned half-smile and holds up a copy of _Baby, the Rain Must Fall_. He's got a plastic shopping bag in his other hand, and she can see the shape of a couple of pints of Ben  & Jerry's jumbled together.

"Oh, Ray," she says, because Steve McQueen and ice cream is their breakup comfort tradition, ever since her college days. She gives him a hug right there in the open doorway, and he sighs and rests his forehead against her shoulder, letting his arms hang at his sides.

"Come on in," she says. "You want something to drink?"

"Ice cream first." He sets the bag down on the coffee table and glances around. "You sure this is okay? You and Vecchio don't have plans?"

It's just a gesture at politeness- if he really didn't want to intrude he could have called first- but she forgives him.

"No, he just got home from work. He's taking the world's longest shower." She jerks a thumb at the bathroom.

"What did Fraser get him into this time?"

"No idea. I think he said something about horse meat? You can find out along with me, if he gets out before he dissolves."

Ray chuckles a little, but he's too sulky to make it more than half-hearted. Stella pats him on the shoulder as he goes to put the tape in the VCR. She fishes around in the grocery bag and gets out his pint of chunky monkey and her cookie dough, like always, but there's three others in there: cherry garcia, peanut butter cup, and New York super fudge chunk.

"Please tell me this isn't a five-pint breakup," she says. "I don't think I can handle that much ice cream." It doesn't look like a five-pint breakup. She isn't really sure what a five-pint breakup _would_ look like, but she's pretty sure Ray's hair would be flat. He's wearing sad clothes, a baggy hoodie and threadbare jeans that he refused to throw out _fifteen years ago_ when they acquired a motor oil stain down the right side, but his hair is still in spikes, so it can't be that bad.

Ray shrugs, not looking up from where he's trying to make the TV understand that the VCR is connected to it.

"I didn't know what Vecchio liked."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Can't bring ice cream to the man's home and not get him any, that's just cruel."

Stella smiles to herself, taking the extra three pints into the kitchen to put them away and grabbing a couple of spoons while she's at it. She'd made it clear that she expected the two Rays to reach a truce, because they're both adults, for god's sake, and there was no way she was going to let them fight over her like some wishy-washy movie heroine. The fact that they've made it from truce to friends, though, was all their own doing.

Ray doesn't say anything during the beginning of the movie, just huddles next to her on the couch and eats his ice cream. That's to be expected, though; it usually takes him a while to get the words together to tell her what happened. He'll get there eventually, if he wants to talk about it. Stella eats her own ice cream, remembering the days when she could go straight through an entire pint without thinking twice. Now she only makes it about halfway before she starts to feel sick. When she was a kid she'd thought that grownups were just trying to be healthy and responsible, but it turns out that losing your sweet tooth really is part of getting older.

They're almost half an hour into the movie when Ray Vecchio finally emerges. She's been drawn in even though she's seen _Baby, the Rain Must Fall_ a million times before, and doesn't remember hearing the shower turn off.

"God, I have had the worst day in the _world_ ," he grouses, wandering out of the bedroom in his pajamas. "Maybe even- oh, hey, Kowalski."

"Hey."

Ray has his detective face on, taking in the two of them on the couch, the little distant smile that means he's assessing something in his head. He does it over stupid things sometimes, like where they could have possibly left the remote, but she'd bet that's how he looks on the job, too. After all, he claims she makes her determined lawyer face when she's scrubbing tough stains, so maybe some habits just get ingrained.

The last time Ray Kowalski got dumped was Nate McClure. She'd already been dating Ray Vecchio at the time, but it was before they'd moved in together, so he hasn't witnessed this particular ritual before. She must have told him about it, though, because she can see him taking in the ice cream and the movie and going back for a second, closer look at Ray, his little smile quirking into something sad.

Stella leans back to catch his eye and makes what she hopes is a sorry-my-friend-is-unexpectedly-sulking-on-our-couch face. He makes an exaggerated sympathy face back, tilting his head at Ray- _poor guy_ \- and comes over to kiss her hello.

"How's it going?" he asks.

"Single again," says Ray. "I'll bet you my day was worse than yours."

"Yeah? How much?"

"Five bucks?"

"Sure." They reach across her to shake on it.

"Well," says Ray Vecchio. "First I investigated some manure, then I had to stay late on stakeout, infiltrated a meat factory, got locked in a freezer by thirty goons for about an hour and a half, which I only survived because my lunatic partner wrapped me entirely in raw slabs of horsemeat, which froze solid, though that was probably good because it stopped a bullet about an inch from my heart when they finally opened the door and started shooting at us. You still wanna contest?"

Ray Kowalski wordlessly digs for his wallet, wide-eyed, but Ray waves him off.

"Oh, just add it to the tally, the odds aren't fair when Fraser's involved anyway," he says. The tally is an ever-escalating list of money each of them has supposedly won off the other, though the only time the debt even gets mentioned is when they're debating who should buy the next round of beer, or who has to tip the delivery guy.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Stella asks him. _An inch from my heart_ might well be an exaggeration, knowing Ray’s storytelling habits, but the idea of it still makes her go cold all over.

"Just bruised a little, nothing major," he says, squeezing her shoulder. "Hey, do you guys want some privacy? I can head over to Ma's for the night."

He says it casually, like it's no big deal for him to get dressed again and clear out of his own home after having what really does sound like the world's worst day. She knows he means it, too. Sometimes she loves him so much she can't breathe. It makes her want to pull him onto the couch and kiss him until he can't either, but that wouldn't really be polite in any company, never mind company that's just been dumped and came here for sympathy.

The thought comes to her that maybe her own days of showing up with ice cream and a movie are over; maybe this is _it._ It's not a realization that comes out of nowhere, exactly, but it's still startling, and she has to make herself set it aside to consider later.

"Don't be stupid, it's your apartment," Ray is saying. "Come watch if you want."

"Nah, I have to have some dinner." 

"If you're going into the kitchen, would you take these?" Stella asks, handing over the two half-eaten cartons of ice cream that have been melting by their feet.

"Sure."

"Ray brought some for you, too, it's in the freezer."

"Thanks," he says, collecting their spoons off the coffee table. "Stell, did you offer him something to eat? I was going to make pasta, I can do enough for two, or I think there's some chicken left over."

"I'm fine, Vecchio," says Ray, rolling his eyes.

"I ate the chicken," Stella adds. She waits until he's in the kitchen to mutter, "I swear, sometimes it's like I’m dating his mother." Ray snorts.

There's the sound of the freezer opening, and then Ray Vecchio calls,

"How'd you know New York super fudge chunk was my favorite?"

"Gut feeling! I got good instincts, I could’ve been a cop."

"There's a little more to it than getting one in three ice cream flavors right."

"Sure, that's what you want us to think."

There's no answer to that, just the sound of kitchenware rattling. Stella abruptly remembers that there's a movie on; she's missed the last few minutes, but she knows it well enough that it doesn't matter.

The pasta takes way longer than necessary, which means he's giving them at least the illusion of privacy, although sound carries pretty easily between the living room and the kitchen. After a few minutes Ray sighs and twists around so he can lie with his head on her thigh. He's too tall for it to really work- his legs end up hanging off the other side of the sofa in a way that can't be comfortable- but she knows an appeal for sympathy when she sees one, so she just pats his arm and waits.

"Don't kick me out," is the first thing he says, eyes still on the movie, "but it was me. I didn't get dumped, I broke up with him."

"Hey, a breakup is a breakup," she says. She's been curious all evening, but now she's mystified. She can't remember seeing or hearing anything that might have hinted that things were going badly. Granted, she doesn't spend all that much time around Ray and Andrew as a couple, but she'd like to think she'd notice if her best friend was that unhappy.

"I guess I just got jealous," he says. Stella winces. Ray can be kind of possessive sometimes; it's been a problem before.

"What happened? Was he with somebody else?"

"What? No. Not jealous of him, jealous of you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, with Vecchio and everything." He waves a hand at the apartment. "I'd just, I'd always come over here and think, this is right. This is what I want. Somebody to come home to, you know, not just to go out with."

"You mean you wanted to move in together?"

"I don't know, maybe," he says, though it sounds like a yes. "Eventually. We'd only been dating eight months, I don't need to rush things, but it just wasn't going anywhere. And he was happy with that. All he wanted was someone to go places with, and some reliable good sex. Which it was, you know, it was great sex, and it's not like he ran out the door afterward, but he never wanted to spend the night either."

"Did you talk to him about it?"

"Yeah, a couple hours ago." Ray snorts. "Then we had a fight, and I said if the relationship wasn't going anywhere then we might as well give up, and he said he didn't understand where I wanted to go anyway, and weren't things great, and I told him that if he wanted me to be a part of his life he'd better let me be a bigger part of it, and he said, 'what do you want me to do, propose? It's not like I can marry you,' and I said, 'that's good, because I sure as hell wouldn't marry someone who only wanted me for a couple of convenient fucks a week.'"

"I'm sure he cares about you more than that," she says. "I've seen you out together, I know he likes spending time with you."

"Yeah, but what does it matter? I mean, that's great, but it doesn't change the facts. He's not even in the closet or anything, it's not like he's scared of people finding out about us, he just...it was like I was this neat little packaged part of his life that had to stay separate from all the rest. I thought we were just taking it slow, y'know, getting used to each other and all, but I guess not."

"I'm sorry, Ray," she says.

"Yeah." He's twisted himself around, gesticulating as he explains, but now he sighs and curls up again, pressing his face into her leg for a second.

"I could have loved him, too," he says, a little muffled. "I was getting there. I wanted him to be the person I called first whenever anything happened. Or even when nothing at all happened, you know? Just to hear his voice."

"You can call me instead," she offers. He rubs her knee absently.

"I know. I can bribe you with ice cream to listen to me bitch all night, too. It's a good deal."

"Pretty good from this side, too. I'd put up with a lot for chocolate chip cookie dough."

"You're the best, Stella, it's good to know you really love me for me."

"Always," she says. She wants to pet his hair, but he'd never allow it, so she settles for rubbing his shoulder instead.

They go back to the movie. Eventually Ray Vecchio comes in to join them, settling in the armchair with a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine. Stella makes an attempt to catch him up on the first half of the movie, but he waves her off and says he'll figure it out, so they just watch quietly for a while.

She can tell when Ray stops paying attention because he loses the ability to stay still. He's not as much of a fidgeter as he was when they were young, but he starts rearranging his legs every couple of minutes, picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion near her knee. Eventually he flops over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

"I'm not sorry," he says, reaching up to fiddle with his earring. "I don't regret anything I did, I like who I am. But sometimes I think it would have been easier to just to marry some girl, you know? It might have been worth it, even if I didn't love her. I could have kids by now, a real family, people to come home to."

She can't deny that her heart clenches at the thought. She and Ray had played at domesticity for a few years in college, and it had been good, it really had. She did like coming home to him, and maybe that would have been enough, even if he couldn't reciprocate everything she wanted from him.

She might have settled for that, if he'd really been serious, at any other point her life. It's strange to realize that she's past it now. She loves him and she wants him to be happy and _god_ she'd still fuck him in a heartbeat if there weren't a thousand reasons not to, but she wouldn't marry him to just be his friend for life. Even apart from the sex, there's something about living with Ray Vecchio that's different, something she can't quite put her finger on that makes it better, sweeter, _more_ than living with a friend could ever be, no matter how close they are.

"It wouldn't be easier," says Ray Vecchio quietly. They both look over, Ray twisting around onto his stomach so he can see the armchair. "You think it would, but it wouldn't. You don't love the person you're married too, the rest of it's all gonna fall apart. There's nothing to build a family _from_."

He's speaking from experience, obviously; Stella's heart aches for him. She reaches out toward the armchair and squeezes his hand when he meets her halfway. Ray Kowalski watches them, propped up on his elbows, an unfamiliar expression on his face.

"Yeah, it's a stupid idea," he says eventually. "I know. I'm just sick of waiting."

"You'll find somebody," Ray tells him.

"Maybe," he says.

"You will," Stella says, putting as much conviction in to the words as she can. He gives her half a smile and settles down again, cheek on her thigh, turning so he can see the TV.

He doesn't find somebody, though, is the thing. He doesn't even really look. Sure, he'll tell her about going out sometimes, but more often than not he's too tired to bother or not in the mood or there was no one who caught his eye and he ends up back at their apartment, snarking at Ray Vecchio over dinner and making her practice tango in circles around the living room.

In retrospect, that might have been a sign.

***

For Ray Vecchio, it starts when he realizes that he’s going to embarrass Stella during their first dance, and there’s really only one logical person to ask for help.

He turns up at Kowalski's apartment with a ricotta cheesecake and his best persuasive expression. He's pretty sure they're good enough friends that Kowalski's not going to mock him too badly, but he braces himself for it, just in case.

"Sure thing," Kowalski says, without hesitation. "You gotta look good on your wedding day. What kind of dance were you thinking?"

Ray blinks at him. "Aren't you the expert? I was hoping you'd tell me."

"Ooookay," Kowalski says. "Why don’t we try the Viennese Waltz and see how you do. That'll look really good, impress everybody."

"Sounds good," Ray says. "Thanks, Kowalski. I owe you one."

"No problem," Kowalski says. "I mean, you'll probably pick it up pretty quickly."

That, as it turns out, is way too optimistic. Kowalski is a good teacher, way more patient than Ray would've given him credit for, actually, but Ray can't seem to step anywhere but on his feet, and he keeps managing to lose the rhythm, even when Kowalski counts it out loud for him. Also, it's weird dancing with somebody who's around his height; he’s only ever danced with women, who were mostly shorter, and also more or less on his level of dancing experience. Kowalski's about as different as it's possible to be. That's really not helping with Ray's general lack of dancing skills.

"So it's gonna take a little more work than I thought," Kowalski says after half an hour. "We got time. Come back on Friday; I once taught Stella’s dad how to waltz, I can handle you."

So Ray and Kowalski have a standing date for half an hour twice a week, during which Kowalski tries to beat a sense of rhythm into him by sheer force of will. To his surprise, Ray finds that he looks forward to it, even though it should be humiliating and not any fun at all. But Kowalski's patience never wavers; he teases Ray about his two left feet, but cheerfully and without malice, and Ray finds himself grinning, even as he fumbles the tempo change yet again.

"Maybe we should give up and try something else?" Ray suggests, on their fourth session.

"Nuh-uh," Kowalski says. "You're gonna get this. You're doing better," which might be true, for a very generous and broad interpretation of the term. "C'mere, I wanna try something, see if it makes things easier."

Ray's not expecting to be pulled in close, so close he can smell the fruity tang of Kowalski's hair gel. He takes a deep breath, reflexively. Under the hair gel, he can smell a faint hint of sweat and also Kowalski's laundry detergent and a little bit of the smell he associates with Kowalski's garage.

"Okay," Kowalski says. "I'm going to keep dancing the woman’s part, but I want you to stay close, try to follow exactly what I'm doing, okay? We gotta get you to feel how the dance is supposed to work."

But Ray is suddenly and entirely unexpectedly distracted by the warmth radiating off of Kowalski and the easy way he moves, taken aback by how he wants to close the gap between them and find out what it would feel like to be pressed against Kowalski from shoulder to thigh.

"Hey, Vecchio, you gotta give me something here," Kowalski says. "C'mon, move."

"Sorry," Ray mutters and does his best to follow Kowalski without getting too close, but he can feel Kowalski's breath against his neck, and it's _distracting_. He mostly just manages to step on Kowalski's feet.

"Are you sure you don't want to try something else?" Ray asks, hoping he sounds less desperate than he feels.

"Positive," Kowalski says. "Stella deserves to marry a guy who can do this."

But as the wedding gets closer, it's looking less and less likely that's going to happen. Ray continues to notice how Kowalski moves, in ways that are definitely about more than just objectively appreciating his technical skills, and his heart beats a little faster when Kowalski grabs his hands, which is stupid, what is he, a middle-school girl? It should probably bother him more than it does, that Kowalski apparently turns his crank, since Kowalski is a _guy_ , and Ray's getting married in a month, and his fiancée also happens to be Kowalski's best friend. But it's not like it means anything, it's just something his body is doing, and hey, he's getting married in a month to the most beautiful woman in the world. If his body is going to be stupid about Kowalski's hands and hips and smile, then Ray can just ignore it. He's got a Viennese Waltz to learn.

***

Legally speaking, of course, it starts with the wedding.

Planning the damn thing is a nightmare, and it turns Stella into some kind of foreign pod-person version of herself that does things like get into screaming fights with Ray about the groomsmen’s shoes and music and whether they really need a professional to do the flowers. At one point she actually storms out of the house, which is something she's never done in her _life_ , not even when she was a teenager fighting with her parents about whether she could share an apartment with Ray Kowalski.

It takes almost half and hour for her to work up the nerve to go back. When she walks in Ray's methodically washing the horrible backlog of dirty dishes they've accumulated, but he stops and they just look at each other for a minute over the sound of the water running.

"I'm sorry," she says eventually. "I don't actually care about the flowers. Your cousin can do them."

"Nah, she'll make it weird, like artistically arranged moss and sticks or something. I should introduce her to Benny, now that I think about it, they'd get along."

He turns off the faucet and comes over to kiss her softly, holding his wet hands out to the side.

"I'm sorry too," he says.

"Wedding planning is the worst thing ever invented," Stella says, wrapping her arms around him and leaning into his shoulder. She can feel him chuckle.

"Maria and Tony weren't speaking to each other for a solid three weeks before their wedding," he says.

All his stories and advice are about Maria and Tony, not him and Ange. The only thing he's said about his first wedding is that he wants to be more involved in the planning this time, to work on it together. That's probably the reason they've had so many fights, honestly, but it's not like Stella was going to say no. Besides, it's good practice for all the other things they'll have to organize and plan and decide together.

That's what she keeps telling herself, anyway.

"Nobody ever tells you how stressful it is," Ray says. "It's all, oh, it'll be beautiful, so many memories, and nothing about nearly coming to blows over flower arrangements."

"Ugh," says Stella, going to toe off her shoes. Ray leans in the doorway to the kitchen and watches her. "Why did we decide to get married again?"

"Because I love you so damn much I can't stand it sometimes," he says quietly. "And I'm tired of anybody thinking I want to spend less than the rest of my life with you."

"Ray-" she says, suddenly choked up again. Wedding stress feels like pregnancy is supposed to; she's probably cried more this month than she has since she first learned to talk. "You can't just say things like that."

"Sure I can. Well, I can to speak for myself. I still don't know why you said yes. You sure you didn't have me confused with some other guy? Someone with less nose and more hair, maybe?"

"Stop fishing for compliments." She goes over and kisses him again, pressing him back against the doorjamb. This time he puts his wet hands in her hair.

"I love you," she says when she pulls away. "I'm sorry I yelled at you about flowers."

"Yeah, me too," he says. "At least it's out of the way. There aren't that many things left that we haven't squared away, right?"

"I don't even know anymore. What's next?"

"Well," says Ray, "you could dry. The drainer's full and half the counter's still covered in dishes, I think it's been a week since we cleaned anything."

Ray Kowalski is one of the groomsmen, the result of a conversation with Ray Vecchio that had both of them stammering and prevaricating and rocking on their heels and Stella laughing because they're such _men_ sometimes. Obviously they're friends, good friends, but they'd rather bicker for a year than acknowledge it out loud.

Fraser's the best man, though, and Stella's sister lives too far away to really do her matron of honor duties to their full extent, so she co-opts Ray Kowalski to her side during the planning phase. He's not a lot of help with anything fashion-related- that's one stereotype he's never fit- but he comes with her to appointments and wrangles all the people they've hired and spends six straight hours on the phone one evening when the venue calls to say they're double-booked, but Stella has a case the next day and Ray Vecchio is actually stuck in jail, of all things, for contempt of court.

She's so used to him problem solving that when he pulls her aside at the rehearsal dinner she expects some last-minute crisis about seating arrangements or cancelled flights or who knows what. Instead, he's fidgeting with something in his pocket.

"So Frannie was really insistent about the whole something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue thing," he says. "She's real superstitious, I guess. Anyway, I got put on 'something old' duty, 'cause of knowing you forever, so...here."

He pulls out his hand and offers it to her. On his palm is a little plastic ring with a green and orange swirl design, just a piece of junk. He'd won her some kind of stuffed animal, she remembers, and she'd saved up her arcade tickets to get him the ring, determined to do one better. She'd told him it meant he was married to her. He'd worn it faithfully for a few weeks, until some of the other boys at school made fun of him for it. They couldn't have been older than twelve.

"I can't believe you still have that," she says, taking it from him and turning it over slowly. She already has something old, her grandmother's pearl earrings that she'll be wearing, but they're not nearly as special. "I didn't even remember it existed until you pulled it out."

"I figured you didn't remember," he says with a grin. "Otherwise you would've told Vecchio you were already married."

She knocks him with her shoulder, still looking at the ring, and he knocks her back.

"You can't go getting married when some other guy's already got your ring, so I thought I'd give it back. That counts as annulment, right, Miss Lawyer?"

"You kept it all these years, though, I don't want to take it. I got it for you, anyway."

"Well, I could trade you for Mr. Violet."

She blinks at him.

"You don't remember Mr. Violet? That purple elephant I won you? All right, now I’m hurt." He shakes his head over her and she laughs.

"I can't believe you remember half this stuff."

"What can I say, it's a talent. Anyway, keep the ring for a bit at least, and then if you still want to give it back I'll take it. That way it can be something borrowed, too."

"I don't know if I'm allowed to double up."

"I won't tell Frannie if you don't."

"Deal."

They shake on it. Ray hangs onto her hand afterward, using it to twirl her in place. She follows the rise of his arm without even thinking about it, the skirt she's wearing swirling out around her.

"I can't believe you're getting married tomorrow," he says when she's facing him again.

"I can't either. I've been so busy planning everything that I haven't even really thought about it."

"Nothing left to plan," he points out. "You have a whole team of people to tackle anything that goes wrong on the day. Maybe you should start thinking about it."

She does, running through the rehearsal in her mind. She adds the music they picked out, the flowers (done by a hired service after all). Her father walking her down the aisle, Ray waiting at the altar, everyone in the bridal party, both sides. Her cousin's son as the unbearably adorable ringbearer who had to be bribed with animal crackers to make it down the aisle during the rehearsal. Ray's niece as the flower girl. Her niece, she should probably practice saying; God, she's inheriting an entire extended family of crazy Italians.

"Oh my god, I'm getting married," she says. Ray smiles at her and cups her face in his hands.

"Are you happy?"

"Yeah," she says, and there she goes tearing up again.

"Good," he says fiercely, and sweeps her into a hug. "That's good. That's all that matters."

The wedding itself is a blur, just like everyone told her it would be. It's a good thing she saw everyone at the rehearsal because at the ceremony she can't make her eyes focus on anyone but Ray, Ray with his dark suit and his beautiful green eyes and his stunned, quiet voice vowing to love her, his hands trembling a little in hers and fumbling the ring. She only cries a little bit, right at the end when they turn and face the audience as husband and wife and her mother is just weeping openly in the front row, which is more than anyone could be expected to take. She turns her head into Ray's shoulder until she gets control of herself, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders and kisses the top of her head and the audience laughs and cheers for them.

In the end she remembers the reception better than the ceremony. They have their first dance to Leonard Cohen’s _Always_ , but halfway through Ray leans down and murmurs,

"Trust me?" into her ear, just as the DJ changes the music. Then he shifts her into an actual frame and leads her into an entirely credible rumba, everyone whooping and cheering from their tables. When the song ends she laughs delightedly and throws her arms around his neck.

"Was I okay?" he asks, smiling down at her.

"You were perfect! How on earth did you learn that?"

"How do you think?"

He nods toward the bridal party table, where Ray Kowalski is watching them with an oddly subdued expression. When he sees her looking, though, he comes to life, grinning and blowing her an ostentatious kiss.

"Thank you!" she yells across the noise of the reception. He says something back, but she can't make it out.

Then it's time to dance with her father, and then Ray again, and by that time other people are starting to take the floor. They take a break to batter their way to the food through an impossible throng of well-wishers, which takes a good half an hour. Once they're done, her husband- husband!- leaves her accepting congratulations from yet another branch of his extended family and returns with Ray Kowalski in tow.

"Go on," he says, "everybody in the room's waiting for you two to get up there." He kisses her, which is still apparently cause for everyone around them to laugh and cheer, and then slides in to take her place with his relatives.

She stops by her parents' table to get the backup shoes she stuffed into her mother's purse, a real dancing pair instead of the delicate things she picked out for the ceremony, and Ray has a word with the DJ. Then he holds out his arms to her and they're off.

They dance two, three, four dances, just easy stuff, though Ray takes pains to make it all flashy.

"You're showing me off," she accuses him.

"You're the bride," he says.

"That I am," she says, laughing. He squints at her.

"Did you manage to get any food, or have you just been drinking champagne all night?"

"Ray Kowalski, are you suggesting that I'm drunk at my own wedding?"

"Are you?"

"Nah, just happy," she says. "Well, maybe a little tipsy. Tipsy and happy."

"Sounds good to me," he says, and neatly twirls her out of the way of the two little kids who are the only people they haven't intimidated off the dance floor.

After that she leaves Ray Kowalski to his sudden crowd of admirers and goes to get her husband back.

"I only learned the one dance, and even that was a struggle" he tells her. "If you want anything else fancy you'll have to stick with Kowalski."

"How about holding me and swaying?" she suggests.

"That I can do," he says.

She keeps him for the rest of the night, except for one song when she ducks out to use the bathroom- not an easy endeavor, what with her dress and stockings and garter and all of it- and comes back to find the two Rays dancing together. They're doing some kind of bastardized Viennese Waltz, Ray Kowalski following and trying to correct Ray Vecchio's arm position at the same time. When they catch sight of her Ray Kowalski takes the lead and dances her husband right over to her before he even realizes what's happening, which makes her giggle.

"I found something of yours," he says, passing Ray Vecchio's hand to her with a wink and disappearing into the crowd. She giggles again- whoops, maybe she is a little bit tipsy.

"I almost had two dances," Ray tells her, "but Kowalski says my waltzing isn't good enough for you."

"It's not," she says, patting him on the arm. "We can work on it, though, if you want."

"Now?"

"Later. Let's sway some more."

"Swaying it is," he agrees, and guides her gallantly back to the dance floor. The DJ switches back to slow music when he sees them, the kind of soppy romantic stuff that's usually more Ray's taste then hers, but she doesn't mind it today. Ray hums along to some of the songs, just loud enough for her to hear.

She loses track of time a little bit, which is maybe the champagne but mostly just the feeling of being wrapped up in Ray, his arm around her waist and his chest under her cheek, his thumb rubbing little circles against the small of her back, the smell of the cologne she got him as a surprise, entrusted to Fraser to present while they were getting ready that morning.

She's drawn out of her reverie by Ray murmuring her name.

"Hmm?" she says.

"...Nothing."

She pulls away a little so she can see his face.

"What is it?"

"I love you," he says. "That's all. I just love you." His eyes are a little misty, and she thumps him lightly on the chest.

"Stop that," she says. "No crying. If you cry, I'll cry, and I am done crying for the day. If I have to fix my makeup one more time I'm going to hit someone."

"Sorry," he says, giving her a fond smile. His voice still sounds kind of wobbly, though.

"All right, I have an idea," she says. "Distraction time. How about I tell you what I'm wearing under this dress? Or did you want it to be a surprise?"

He swallows hard, giving her a wide-eyed look.

"Uh, no. You can tell me."

"All right. So there's stockings, obviously you know that part, the kind with the little line going up them, and the garter. Though I guess that'll be gone by the time you get there, obviously."

"Obviously," he echoes faintly. She grins.

"The important part is that I bought special underwear, though. Special wedding night underwear. It's all really nice silk, and it's, uh, kind of daring. But the best part is, there's no bra."

He stares at her.

"It's not a bra, it's a _corset_ , You can actually see part of it right now, here." She pulls back an inch, touching a finger to the very lowest point of her dress's V-neck. "You can't tell, right? Because the lace matches the dress so well. But that little inset bit isn't lining or a panel or anything, it's the corset I'm wearing under this."

She stands on tiptoe and leans in to whisper right in his ear, "My rack looks _fantastic_."

He swallows again, and his hand clenches tight on her side for a moment.

"Your rack always looks fantastic," he whispers back.

"You have to say that, you're my husband," she tells him.

"So I am," he says, and kisses her until somebody wolf-whistles.

***

Ray Kowalski would say that it starts like this:

Vecchio doesn't say goodbye before he leaves for Vegas.

Ray only hears about it from Stella the next day, when she invites him over for dinner and swears him to secrecy before telling him everything, clutching his hand hard enough that his knuckles grind together. It all seems impossible, even more impossible than Vecchio's usual work stories: a dead mobster lookalike, Vecchio given less than twenty-four hours to make a decision, talking it over with Stella that evening, then gone in the morning, all before Ray had any inkling that something was going on.

Vecchio's only meant to be gone for two weeks. Fraser's on vacation up in Canada, so the cover story is that Vecchio's gone up there with him, which makes him nicely untraceable. Stella says that they usually only tap single guys for dangerous undercover work, but the whole resemblance thing makes Vecchio the only choice for this assignment. Ray privately thinks that most married men wouldn't even go for two weeks, but Vecchio's married to Stella, and the only person he's ever met more dedicated to bringing down the scum of the earth than Stella is Fraser. Maybe not even; Fraser's more dedicated to rehabilitating the scum of the earth, probably. Stella and Vecchio just want them behind bars.

So Stella is probably the only wife in the world who didn't try to talk her husband out of going undercover with the goddamn mafia, but it doesn't mean it's any less awful. Ray pretty much moves in with her while Vecchio's gone. He's over for dinner every night, doing his best to be distracting, telling stories about work and renting carefully selected movies- no crime, no violence, no guns- and letting her talk through the week's cases at him. They spend hours dancing, sometimes going out and sometimes just in careful circles around the living room. None of it actually takes her mind off Vecchio- or his, for that matter- but it's better to be doing _something_.

He's lived with Stella a few times, most notably while she was in college and he was trying to figure out a world where his parents weren't speaking to him but guys in bars would trace their fingers over the shell of his ear and say _hey, that's nice_. It's both easy and not to slip back into all their old roommate routines. He knows Stella by heart, all the little quirks that you don't learn until you've lived with someone: the way she has to change clothes within thirty seconds of getting home from work, the classic rock she sings in the shower, the absolute necessity of not running out of orange juice, the way she's so sensitive to onions that she has to stop three times to wipe her face and blow her nose whenever she cooks with them.

Even despite all the familiarity, though, everything feels just a little bit off. There's a space where Vecchio should be. It's there in the apartment, where Ray sometimes hangs out with Stella while Vecchio's out but never for this many days in a row, and it's there in their conversations, pauses where he's expecting Vecchio's particular brand of friendly scorn, which somewhere along the line went from raising his hackles to making him grin. He can't remember exactly when that happened.

Stella jumps every time the phone rings. She's afraid of getting the phone call, the one everyone who's ever loved a cop probably has nightmares about; Ray, though he doesn't tell her this, is afraid of not getting it. At some point on day three he had the thought that Vecchio might be dead already and there's no way they'd know it, and since then he hasn't been able to get the idea out of his head.

On day eleven he's finishing up the brake lines on a Camry when Carla sticks her head out of the office and yells,

"Kowalski, phone for you!"

It isn't Stella, because everyone at the shop knows Stella, so it would have been _your other half is calling_ or _it's your girl on the phone_ or something like that. If it isn't Stella it isn't about Vecchio, because no one else would think to call him about Vecchio in the middle of the day, so he isn't expecting anything more than a customer asking for him by name for some reason when he wipes his hands off, grabs the phone, and says,

"Ray Kowalski here."

"Hey, Kowalski," says Vecchio, and Ray just about falls off the counter he's perched on.

"Vecchio?" he manages, and then he's too busy suddenly panicking about whether saying Vecchio's name on the phone is going to somehow blow his cover to add anything else.

"You seen Stella lately?" Vecchio asks. "I can't get in touch with her."

"Yeah, she has court all day. Saw her this morning, though, I gave her a ride to work."

"Oh. Good." Vecchio sounds really frighteningly relieved, way toorelieved, and what the hell is going on here? Is Stella in some kind of danger? Is _Vecchio_ in danger?

"Are you okay?" Ray asks carefully.

"What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Actually, uh. I know you're at work, but can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure," says Ray. He doesn’t know what on earth he's expecting, but it certainly isn't:

"Could you maybe pick me up at O'Hare? I just got in."

"You _what?_ You couldn't have started with that? I thought you were supposed to be gone another three days!" Carla's looking at him funny. He's probably being kind of loud, and he doesn't really know why he sounds like he's angry with Vecchio, which he definitely isn't, but he has to do something with all the adrenaline that's suddenly pumping through him.

"Well, a lot of things don't go like they're supposed to," says Vecchio. Ray doesn't know what that means, but it sure as hell isn't good. "Look, can you come get me? I wouldn't ask, it's just that I can't get through to Stella, and Fraser's still in Canada, and I, uh. I can't do a taxi right now, okay?"

That list has an obvious omission, but if Vecchio doesn't want to see his family right now that's his own business.

"Yeah, of course," he says instead. "I'll be right there. Where are you?"

Carla gives him a dirty look, but he ignores her, grabbing a sharpie out of the pen cup to write Vecchio's terminal information on the back of his hand. He doesn't trust himself to remember much of anything right now.

"Hang tight, I'll be right there," he says, and high-tails it out of the shop, claiming a family emergency. He's had to do this too many times in the last couple of years, though usually it's Stella calling to say that Vecchio's in the hospital and can he bring her an overnight bag, or would he drive Ma and Maria over. The guy really needs to reconsider his career choice.

He spots Vecchio almost immediately, standing with his back to the wall in a suit that definitely isn't his, scanning the flow of traffic and passengers around him. He doesn't have a single piece of luggage. Something inside Ray quietly unknots at the sight and he wants to hug Vecchio, to just _grab_ him and make sure he's really there, but he doesn't think Vecchio would appreciate it and anyway there's no opportunity. Vecchio just slips into the passenger seat of the GTO and Ray can't even get a good look at him, has to keep his eyes on the mess of crawling cars and people greeting each other in the middle of the road, stopping to open trunks and load luggage and generally do all the obnoxious airport things that people do.

He can't stop himself from darting glances over, though. Vecchio looks unhurt but utterly, utterly exhausted, head tilted back against the seat and staring blankly through the windshield. Ray can't think of anything to say. He wouldn't dare ask about what Vecchio's been doing even if it wasn't classified six ways to Sunday. Hell, he isn't supposed to know about Vegas at all, though apparently Vecchio knew he wouldn't buy the Canada vacation story and gave Stella the green light to fill him in.

Vecchio's the one to break the silence in the end. Once they're on the highway he sighs, closing his eyes for a second, and when he opens them again he's actually looking at Ray.

"Thanks," he says. "For skipping out on work and all."

"No problem. I'm just glad you're back." A horrible thought occurs to Ray. "You are back, aren't you? It's over?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm done."

"Thank God."

Vecchio makes this noise, this little humorless laugh that's probably supposed to be agreement but it just sounds _awful_. Ray abruptly decides that he really doesn’t want to know what happened in Vegas. If Vecchio wants to tell him he'll listen, of course, or if Vecchio tells Stella and Stella tells him, whatever, but left to his own devices he's content just to know that Vecchio's home and not tied to cinderblocks at the bottom of a lake or something. Well, they don't have lakes in Vegas, but whatever they do have.

Vecchio probably knows what they have in Vegas. Ray steps on the gas rather than ask him.

When they get back to the apartment Vecchio just sits there, making no move to get out of the car.

"You, uh, want company?" Ray asks. Vecchio blinks.

"I don't have keys," he says. Right. You probably wouldn't take your house keys with you to go undercover as a mob boss.

"Keys, I can handle," Ray tells him. He's had a key to all of Stella's apartments since he stopped living with her. He gets out of the car, relieved to see Vecchio do the same, and makes it all the way to the front door before he realizes he could have just given Vecchio the key. Oh, well, too late now.

He lets them in, stepping aside so Vecchio can precede him. Everything looks just like they left it this morning, down to the breakfast dishes in the sink and the sheet and pillow piled on the couch where he slept. There was a time when he would've shared the bed with Stella when he stayed over, not touching, backs turned comfortably toward each other, but now the other side of the bed is Vecchio's, and it stays that way even when he's not there. Especially when he's not there.

Vecchio heads straight for the bedroom, emerging a few minutes later in his own clothes. His shoulders have relaxed a little bit, too, and he looks more like he's actually focusing on what's around him.

"Too late for you to go back to work?" he asks, meandering around the apartment on a slow path to the kitchen. Ray glances at his watch: 4:16.

"Yeah, not really worth it. I thought maybe I'd go pick Stella up, bring her back here? She'd kill me if she found out I knew you were here and didn't tell her first thing. Or, uh, unless you were gonna go get her."

Obviously Vecchio can drive over on his own, that probably should have occurred to Ray sooner. It feels like he hasn't been able to get his thoughts together since Carla handed him the phone.

Vecchio looks torn for a second, then sighs.

"I really should call Ma," he says. "Would you mind going? Then I'll be off the phone by the time you get back."

"Hey, no problem," Ray says. If he leaves now he'll be kind of early, but he doesn't want to intrude on Vecchio's phone conversation, so he grabs his keys and heads out with an awkward wave. He can hear Vecchio bolt the door behind him.

There's traffic heading for the courthouse but he's still early, so he circles the block, drumming on the wheel with the heels of his hands as he turns left and left and left again. He's lost track of how many times he's gone around before Stella finally appears. She's talking to some guy in a suit at the top of the steps and there's still no place to pull over, so Ray just slaps on his flashers and hits the horn a couple times until she notices the GTO.

"Vecchio's back," he says as soon as she's close enough to hear. "Come on, I'll take you home."

He breaks traffic laws on the way back, a lot of them. He has a feeling that the other option is Stella throwing him out of the car and doing it herself.

By some miracle the parking spot he left is still open, so he pulls in and follows Stella as she half-runs for the apartment. She has her keys but it doesn’t do much good; the chain lock is on from the other side. She shakes the door gently, rattling the chain against it.

"Hey, it's me," she calls. Ray hasn't gotten to the top of the stairs yet and he can't quite make out Vecchio's reply, but he hears the chain slide back, and he hears the way Stella says,

" _Ray,"_ like all the tight composure she's been holding on to for the last week and a half has abruptly shattered. When Ray gets all the way up the stairs the two of them are wrapped around each other, clinging tight. Vecchio's facing him but he's got his eyes closed, pressing his face into Stella's neck, and so he doesn't see Ray standing there. No one watches him close the door quietly and go back downstairs.

It hits him as he's leaving, like now that he doesn't have to worry about taking care of Stella anymore all the fear that he's been ignoring for the past week is suddenly back, a weird mixed-up torrent of terror and relief and this awful feeling like walking away from Stella and Vecchio's apartment is tearing something out of his heart. He has to just sit in the GTO for a minute and try to breathe around all of it, slapping his palms on his thighs to focus himself so he can drive.

Ray likes to think of himself as a guy who's pretty in touch with his emotions, but somehow he just didn't _know_. It took Vecchio leaving and coming back, it took closing the door on the two of them to make him realize how much he desperately didn't want to. What he wants to do is to help Stella make dinner, to hear whatever Vecchio can say, to take him to bed and wrap around him and just hold him until that shell-shocked look comes off his face. And it's not that he wants to take Stella's place, either, he just wants to be part of it. He wants to be there for them, be there with them, not have to back away and respect their privacy and the fact that they- Jesus. The fact that they love each other more than they love him.

He's got his gym stuff in the trunk. He drives over and works on beating out the realization on the heavy bag until he can't think anymore, just feels like nothing but muscle and sweat and exhaustion. The important thing is that Vecchio's home safe, he reminds himself.

It's the truth, and it even helps a little.

***

The actual idea for the whole thing starts with the boxing match.

Honestly, the first sign is that Ray agrees to go in the first place. He doesn't really care much about boxing one way or the other, but Kowalski's just about bursting with excitement for his kid and Stella won't go. She hates the whole sport; she's never said it outright, but he has a feeling that it might have something to do with seeing Kowalski get beaten up outsidethe ring a time or two when they were young.

Ray takes Fraser with him instead, since whatever complicated thing he insists he doesn't have going on with Thatcher seems to be on the rocks. Ray suspects fallout from the bounty hunter lady, but he’s not getting involved. Whatever the reason, Fraser’s got nothing to do all weekend but talk to the wolf and polish doorknobs or whatever he does with his spare time, and of course he's interested to observe American boxing culture, so out they go. He's being extra-embarrassing with his usual Canadian weirdness, but he seems glad to get out of the Consulate and Kowalski's happy to see them weirdness and all, so Ray doesn't mind too much. He's even enjoying the match, before the other fighter goes down and doesn't get up.

Everything goes downhill fast after that. It takes Ray's gun to even get them out of the building- though nothing but warning shots, thank god- and by that time Kowalski's kid is long gone. Kowalski want to go after him, of course, and Ray has to shake some sense into him about how he's going to get himself killed barging into gang business with no idea what he's doing.

"What're you gonna do if you find him, anyway? Then it'll just be both of you on the run from Twenty-Twos, how is that any better?"

"At least he'd have someone to help him," Kowalski snaps.

"He has a whole gang to help him, doesn't he? I don't care how much you've hung around at Devlin's gym, you are not a part of it. Guys like you get eaten alive in this neighborhood."

Kowalski's eyes narrow and his chin comes up and really, does he have to be so touchy all the damn time?

"For god's sake, I meant skinny white guys with a big mouth and no weapon to back it up," Ray tells him. "I didn't mean-" _gay_ , he doesn’t say, not here. Kowalski likes this place, obviously, and if this whole mess gets cleared up he'll probably want to come back.

"Yeah, sure you didn't," says Kowalski, but he doesn't say it out loud either. That means he's at least got enough of a sense of self-preservation that he hasn't been doing his in-your-face out-and-proud act here, even though Ray knows he hates keeping it secret.

Kowalski glares at him for a second, then shakes himself and says,

"Hey, you've got arrests to make. Don't let me get in your way." He turns to go and Ray grabs his arm. No way is he letting Kowalski go after Levon. Ray's worked gang cases before, he knows what happens to people who get mixed up in that stuff, and he's pretty sure Kowalski doesn't have the first clue how to protect himself, no matter how much mediocre boxing he does.

"Come back to the station with us," he says. "Come on, an eye witness account would help." Kowalski gives him a look like he knows exactly what Ray's trying to do.

"An account from a neutral observer would be useful," Fraser puts in, sounding utterly reasonable. "Besides, have you considered that Levon presumably knows this neighborhood quite well? If he's decided to lay low somewhere he feels is safe, then your searching for him might only expose his hiding place. It wouldn't be difficult for his pursuers to follow you."

Thank god for Fraser. Ray leaves him to it and goes to deal with, right, the guys he's supposed to be arresting. By the time that's all settled Fraser's convinced Kowalski to at least come back to the station with them, and in the car Ray talks him into coming over for dinner, mostly by calling Stella and telling her so without actually running it by Kowalski first. In exchange he agrees to spend the intervening hours driving around with Kowalski in search of Levon, but at least that way Kowalski has a badge and a gun on his side if he gets into trouble. It's not like Ray wants the kid to get killed either, but nobody's actually threatened him yet- not in a way that could get the law involved, that is- and if Ray spent all of his time trying to head off gang conflicts before they started he'd probably be sleepless for a couple of days and then dead.

So he spends the evening looking for Levon because Kowalski thinks Jamal Martin is trying to kill him, and then he spends the next morning looking for Levon again because Welsh thinks he killed Jamal Martin. There's no sign of him either time. The only reason they manage to pick him up at all is that he calls Ray's cell phone in a panic just before noon, and Ray throws his siren on and just barely manages to get there in time to prevent yet another homicide.

Levon is winded and grateful and apparently has no idea that he's in trouble. Ray's stomach sinks as he gets his handcuffs out, because Kowalski was the one who'd made Levon take his phone number in the first place, and he knows this looks a lot like a betrayal. Kowalski genuinely cares about the kid, he can tell, and Levon might be nice but he's definitely not going to forget this anytime soon.

Everything gets worse when he walks Levon into the station and finds Kowalski fidgeting in Fraser's usual chair next to his desk.

"What the _hell_ , Vechcio?" he demands, on his feet in an instant and striding across the bullpen. "Is this why you were helping me look for him? You know there was nothing wrong with that match, you were there!"

"I didn't do it, I swear, it wasn't me," Levon's protesting, like pleading his innocence to Kowalski of all people is going to do anything.

"Did something happen?" Kowalsi cuts in, talking right over him. "You knew those guys were after him, Vecchio, it wasn't his fault. Haven't you ever heard of self-defense?"

And then Fraser starts trying to explain what's going on, except now Kowalsi's convinced that there was some kind of showdown and he's trying to check if Levon's injured, and Levon is still doing his panicked babbling, and by now they're making enough of a scene that the whole room is watching. Ray's got about three seconds until Welsh comes out of his office and demands an explanation for the ruckus, so he says,

"Fraser, deal with the kid," and frog-marches Kowalski into the breakroom with a bruising grip on his arm.

"What is goingon?" Kowalski says. Ray rolls his eyes.

"Shut up for a minute and I'll tell you." He points Kowalski at a chair and goes to get them both cups of shitty coffee. He can practically feel Kowalski itching to say something, but he takes his time anyway. There's not going to be any good way to break this news. In the end he does it cop-style, simple and straightforward.

"Levon's under arrest for the murder of Jamal Martin," he says, setting both cups down and taking the seat across from Kowalski.

"Jamal?"

"Yeah. They found him dead in an alley this morning, beat to hell. Definitely a trained boxer who did it."

"It wasn't Levon."

"Were you with him last night?"

"No."

"Were you with Jamal?"

"No."

Ray sighs and leans back in his chair, taking a sip of his coffee. It's not quite so bad if you drink it while it's still hot.

"So how do you know it wasn't him?"

"He wouldn't do that. He's a good kid."

"And how well do you think that defense would stand up in court?"

Kowalski sighs but doesn't answer. He braves the coffee instead, and looks like he regrets it.

"What're you doing here, anyway?" Ray asks.

"Had a couple more ideas of where Levon might be holed up," Kowalski says, getting up to dump sugar into his cup.

"You couldn't just call?"

"It's my lunch break. Vecchio, I mean it, I know him. He wouldn't do something like that."

"I'm not saying he did," says Ray. Kowalski shoots him a look from the counter.

"Really? 'Cause the thing where you dragged him in here in handcuffs sure looks like you are."

"Come on, Kowalski, how much case prep have you done with Stella? I know you know how this works. Levon's in cuffs because he's the most likely looking guy we have right now. He's got a motive, everybody knows Jamal was after him, and he's a boxer, so that matches Jamal's injury. That's it. Do you see what's missing here?"

Kowalski just looks at him blankly, so Ray answers himself.

"Evidence. We've got absolutely zero evidence right now. Unless we find some- which we won't, if he didn't do it- or he confesses, there's no way he's going down for this."

"Right, 'cause nobody ever goes to jail for a crime they didn't commit. Especially not poor black kids from the dead guy's rival gang. Like anybody's gonna look too hard at that one to make sure everything lines up."

"I am," says Ray, stung.

Kowalski rubs a hand over his face and takes his doctored coffee back to the table.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean you, I just meant-"

"Yeah, I know," says Ray. He's familiar with all the places where the legal system breaks down, but it's what they've got. All he can do is make sure his own cases are clean. "Listen, I'll look out for Levon. If he didn't do it, he won't do the time. But you know what would get him out of here faster than anything?"

"What?"

"Catching the real murderer. You know anyone else who had a beef with Jamal?"

Kowalski's eager to help, so Ray quizzes him on the gangs and the boxing club and the neighborhood for a good fifteen minutes. He doesn't get anything solid, but there are a few leads that might be worth following up.

"I should get back to work," says Kowalski apologetically, and Ray glances at the clock; twelve-thirty. Kowalski's probably going to be late.

"All right," he says. "Thanks for your help. And hey, I promise I'll let you know if anything happens, but don't worry about it too much, okay? Let me do my job. If I brought the Riv into your shop ‘cause it was running funny, would I tell you exactly what was wrong with it and how you should fix it?"

"Vecchio, that's exactly what you do," says Kowalski, grinning. Ray can't help but smile back, relieved. He doesn't think Kowalski's ever been really mad at him before- standoffish, yes, back when he first started dating Stella, but not actually angry- and going back to their usual joking around eases the knot of tension in his stomach.

Now he just has to avoid charging Levon with homicide.

Fraser's in the middle of an Earnest Canadian Story when he sticks his head in.

"Fraser, can I talk to you for a minute?" he asks. Fraser excuses himself politely- of course- and they go next door. Ray leans against the wall and watches Levon fidget through the one-way glass.

"You get anything?"

"Not as such, no. He claims he spent the night in a friend's basement, but no one saw him- which I gather was the point- so I doubt we'll be able to prove it."

"You think he's innocent, though, right?"

"Well, I don't think we have-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, too early to say. But if you had to take a guess one way or the other, right now, what would you say?"

Fraser thinks about it for a minute, turning to look at Levon through the glass.

"I'd say he's innocent," he allows. Ray relaxes a little bit. Working against Fraser is the worst.

"Just a gut feeling?"

"No," says Fraser slowly. "You saw Jamal's hands in the morgue. It certainly appears that he fought back against his assailant. I don't see any new marks on Levon, other than what he sustained in the boxing match yesterday. Of course, there could be evidence hidden by his clothing, or he could have been wearing protective equipment, but it does make me wonder."

"That makes sense," says Ray, but he's only half-listening. The rest of his attention is taken up with the slow realization that he's not trying to find the truth anymore, he's trying to prove that Levon is innocent. He's been here before, needing one particular outcome so badly that he made himself believe it, and it didn't end well. At least this time he's not so caught up that he can't stop himself.

"We'd better let Huey and Dewey have the interrogation," he says, though it's hard to force those words out.

"Oh?" says Fraser.

"I'll go too easy on him, I know it. I don't want it to be him. I _need_ it not to be him."

"Well, that's understandable, Ray," says Fraser. "I can tell that you care for Ray Kowalski very much, and it's always commendable to remove yourself from a case in which you may be personally motivated."

Ray turns and stares at him. Fraser meets his eyes levelly, and shit, Fraser's good at noticing this stuff when it suits him, and he spends half his waking hours with Ray, of course he's figured it out. Thank god it wasn't anyone else. Fraser's probably the only person in the world who could just take _I think I have feelings for my wife's very male best friend_ in stride. If anyone else at the station found out...well, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Ray closes his eyes and lets his head thunk back against the wall.

"God, Fraser, what am I gonna _do_?" he says quietly.

"If you're open to suggestions, I do have a thought about the Furosemide," says Fraser. "Perhaps we should see if the lab results are back."

When Ray opens his eyes Fraser's watching him with a small smile, and Ray could kiss him for being willing to pretend that Ray was talking about the case.

Except not really, because if he's going to be kissing any guy he wants it to be Kowalski, and isn't that a terrifying thought right there.

The case turns out all right in the end, for a value of all right that means Levon isn't the murderer but also that Ray falls through a skylight and almost gets killed. He takes the rest of the day off, because the case is closed and he doesn't have anything else pressing and also he _fell through a skylight_. If that doesn't merit a little R &R he doesn't know what does. Not that it's particularly restful or relaxing, since he spends most of it trying to figure out how he's going to tell Stella.

Ray and Stella have a rule that Stella likes to call _married, not dead_. The rule states that they're both going to find other people attractive sometimes, and that it's okay. They don't have to pretend that it doesn't happen just because they're together. Stella came up with it one day when they had this unfairly gorgeous waitress and Ray was trying his absolute hardest not to look, or at least he was until Stella kicked him in the shin and rolled her eyes.

It's one of the reasons he loves her so much. Not because she lets him stare at other women or anything, but because it sounded so reasonable when she spelled it out. Why spend time trying to hide it or feeling guilty? It happened sometimes, and when it did they could laugh about it and go home together and no one would waste any energy feeling bad.

A side effect of the rule is that they get good at spotting each other's types. Well, Ray's isn't hard; Stella is the epitome of what he likes in a woman. He knew it from the first time she walked into the two-seven like she owned the place and delegated the upkeep. Stella's head gets turned by guys who are just a little cooler than Ray, a little more dangerous-looking, and when they first start dating he hadn't really loved that. It doesn't bother him at all anymore. If there's a difference between the kind of guy who catches her eye in a bar and the guy she wants to spend the rest of her life with, well, he knows which one he'd rather be.

(It helps that Stella's other type is twenty-something graduate students doing internships around the courthouse, or even baby-faced college boys working evenings and summer jobs, waiting tables and parking cars. Ray teases her over those and she blushes and hides her face in her hands, but she always leaves good tips for them anyway.)

Sometimes he remembers going out with Ange and making desperately sure to look at no one but her, because that was what you did when you were with someone. She'd caught him noticing other women a time or two. He remembers feeling horrible about it, like he'd let her down, even though he'd never had even the remotest inkling of an inclination to cheat on her.

Ange had probably looked at other guys, too—married, not dead, after all. It never would have occurred to either of them that they didn't need to feel bad about it. The longer he spends with Stella, the more his first marriage seems like it was just kids playing house, trying to fumble through the relationship they thought they should have.

The point of the whole thing is that it's not a big deal. Maybe you walk down the street one day and notice that the sunset is pretty, or maybe you notice that the person out walking your dog is pretty, and neither thing actually impacts your life. Maybe it comes up in conversation and maybe it doesn't. It's just...scenery.

Except sometimes it isn't. Sometimes if it's someone you see on a regular basis, someone who you actually know and like, then it starts to be something else. That's the thing keeping Ray from his R&R the second part of the rule is that it's okay to have feelings for someone too, but if that happens you have to tell. At that point it becomes important, and keeping important things a secret is a recipe for disaster.

They've dealt with it a time or two before and it's been fine, but this is different. It's Kowalski. He's a guy, for one thing, and it's not like Stella's going to judge him for it but it's still disconcerting, even so. For another, he's Stella's best friend, and he spends enough time at their apartment that it sometimes feels empty when he has a busy week. It's not the same as having a crush on the day shift security guard at the courthouse.

And then there's the fact that Stella's been in love with him since forever. It had come up early in their relationship, when Ray had gotten to the point where it started to feel dishonest not to tell her that he'd been married before. He'd steeled himself to bring it up, but she'd beaten him to the punch with her own confession. It wasn't going to matter, she'd promised, it wouldn't affect anything about their relationship, but he deserved to know that her feelings for Kowalski were more than just those of a best friend. He'd taken a little while to get used to the idea, but she'd been right. It doesn't matter, except in that it's another thing that adds to his understanding of Stella, just like his first marriage is a part of him that she understands.

Basically, everything about Kowalski is complicated.

Ray doesn't say anything that night, but he's thinking about it now, and the next day at work he can't help noticing how many times he mentions Kowalski's name. Part of it is that Kowalski spends so much time at their apartment that he's got a good chance of being involved in whatever anecdote Ray's telling, but even that doesn't really account for it. Or maybe they're just both signs of the same thing; somehow Kowalski's become a part of his life, like he belongs there, and Ray doesn't know when it happened.

Stella has a long day, so Ray starts dinner when he gets home. He decides to put a little effort into it. He likes cooking for Stella, and he likes the way that complicated recipes settle him down and give him a chance to think; he's not really much for quiet self-reflection, but if he's got something to keep his hands occupied it's easier.

He hasn't figured much of anything out by the time the lasagna- his mother's recipe- goes in the oven, but the one thing he does know is that it's time to tell Stella. She's in the living room, where he'd shooed her after refusing her help in the kitchen. Ray takes a deep breath, wipes his hands off, and goes in.

Stella's sitting sideways on the couch, wine glass at her right hand, reading whatever new memoir she has out of the library this week; they all seem pretty much the same to Ray. She smiles up at him when he comes in and a little bit of the anxiety eases, just seeing her. Sometimes he forgets just how wonderful she is. It's always been like that, from the first few times he was nervous before their dates to the month he spent convincing himself that he could get married again and it would be different this time, it would be okay. He'd worked himself up into something close to dread a few times, but never when Stella was there. On his own it sometimes felt like the worst idea he'd ever had, but as soon as she walked into the room he'd remember how much he loved her, how much he loved being with her, how she was smart and rational and real and how hard she worked to keep their relationship going. Maybe he didn't always have faith in himself, but he never doubted that she could do anything she put her mind to, and one of the things she put her mind to was being married to him.

"Thanks for cooking," she says, pulling her knees up so he has room to sit down.

"Sure," he says. "It'll be a while, though, you want a snack or something?"

"I'll wait. Being a little hungry never hurt anyone."

"Please don't ever let my mother hear you say that."

"Never," she promises, hand over her heart.

"You near a good stopping point?" he asks. She looks down, flipping ahead in her book.

"Page and a half until the end of the chapter."

"Okay." He tips his head back against the sofa and stares at the ceiling as she reads, trying to rehearse what he wants to say. He doesn't get very far. It seems like the page and a half takes her about ten seconds.

"All right," she says, casting around for something to use as a bookmark and ending up with a tissue from the box on the coffee table. The book goes on the floor and she turns to give him her full attention, nudging her bare toes up against his leg. Ray swallows.

"I wanted to talk to you about something," he says.

"What is it?"

"There's somebody- uh. I realized recently that I, uh, I've developed feelings for someone," he manages.

"Ooh, is it someone I know?" she asks, sounding every bit like his sisters grilling him about the girls he dated in high school and not at all worried.

"Yeah," he says, and then can't make himself go on. The glee fades from Stella's expression until she's just watching him.

"Well?" she prompts gently, and Ray just can't get the words out, he has them in his head but something's disconnected between that and his mouth, or else some relic of a self-protective instinct has reared its head and clamped down on the words. He shakes his head, aware that Stella is looking more and more worried.

"It's not- it's fine, don't- it's not a big deal," he manages, which doesn't even make sense to him.

"Ray?" She leans forward to put a hand on his leg. He can't possibly say it while he's looking at her, so he stares down at the floor and takes a deep breath. It still takes him a minute to get past the way his throat wants to close.

"It's a guy," he says finally, in a rush.

As soon as the words are out there it seems like less of a big deal, and Ray feels a little stupid for making it one. So it's a guy, so what. It's not like it changes anything. He already knew it wouldn't bother Stella; she's just watching him, considering.

"Fraser?" she asks when he looks back up.

"What? No, not Fraser!"

She shrugs. "Hey, it's not an unreasonable guess. You two are pretty close, and you can't deny he's attractive."

He can't, but that's more because he's aware of the way that women swoon over Fraser everywhere they go, not because of any personal opinion. Which isn't to say that Fraser's ugly or anything; Ray's just never thought of him that way, not even after his dancing lessons with Kowalski when he spent an unsettling night reconsidering every male friend he'd ever had.

"Ugh, no," he says, "it'd be like kissing my brother."

"If you say so," says Stella, eyes dancing. Once they sort this out he's definitely going to interrogate her about being attracted to Fraser. He wouldn't have guessed it, but if it's true he's got years of teasing to catch up on.

"So, it's a guy I know and it isn't Fraser," she continues. "That's pretty open-ended, I know a lot of men. Are you going to give me a hint?"

He almost does, but he doesn't really want to draw this out any longer. He has to put his face in his hands before he can make himself say,

"It's Kowalski."

"Oh my god, Ray, really?" she says, somewhere between amusement and sympathy.

"I know," he groans. She shifts around so she can lean against his shoulder.

"We should be on some kind of talk show," she says, half-laughing, "one of those really awful ones where they pick apart family drama. 'My husband and I both want the same man.'"

"Scandalous," he agrees. The knot in his stomach is untwisting itself slowly; he doesn't _like_ keeping secrets, especially not from Stella. After a moment, she says,

"You haven't said anything before, about being attracted to men." She says it carefully, lightly, a simple statement rather than a question or an accusation. Ray thinks for the millionth time that he doesn't deserve her.

"That's because I haven't been," he says. "Or at least I didn't know it. Now I look back at things and I'm not so sure, but I never thought about it before-" he breaks off, glancing over. She raises her eyebrows. "-before Kowalski," he finishes, sighing.

"He is known to have that effect," she says with a grin.

"Is that supposed to be comforting? That isn't comforting."

"I thought it might be nice to know that you're not the only guy he's caused to...question some things, if you will. You know, so you'd feel less alone."

"I wasn't really worried about feeling alone. It just so happens I know someone who's been mooning over him for practically her entire life."

"Do I moon? I'm not sure if 'moon' is the word I'd use." She gives him her best skeptical lawyer face. He laughs, grateful that they can still tease each other about this.

"You moon a little bit."

"Well, maybe a little. Occasionally. You said feelings, though? That sounds like it's kind of serious."

"That's why I wanted to tell you. I knew I was attracted to him a long time ago, but on its own that didn't seem like so much of a big deal."

"It didn't seem like a big deal?" she repeats, incredulous. "You decided you were into my very male, very gay best friend, but it wasn't really noteworthy?"

"It wasn't! It was right before our wedding, you know how he taught me to rumba for the first dance?"

"Really, Ray?" She's laughing at him, which is only to be expected; he knows as well as she does that Kowalski purposefully invites guys he's interested in to watch him dance. It's his most successful seduction strategy.

"It's not my fault! He just..." Ray swallows. "He moves well."

"I _know_ ," says Stella, pressing her face against his shoulder. Of course she knows; she dances with him all the time. Ray hadn't really given that much thought, even when he was first trying to reconcile her feelings for Kowalski with their relationship. He wonders if she's ever gotten used to the way Kowalski's hands wrap around her waist, the electric heat of him up close, if it makes her breath catch every time the way his did. Eighteen years is a long time to want someone who doesn't want you back. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze.

"It didn't really matter, though," he says. "I was mostly thinking about the wedding, and then I was marrying you and we were on our honeymoon and it honestly just wasn't important compared everything else. So I liked dancing with Kowalski a little more than I expected to, so what? I'd rather just sway with you any day. I could barely even focus on work when I knew I got to come home to you at the end of the day, there just wasn't room in my head for thinking about Kowalski."

She catches his hands- he hadn't realized he'd been gesturing- and kisses him.

"I remember," she says. "I'm glad we got past that phase, as nice as it was. You would've gotten yourself shot."

"Fraser was looking out for me."

"Fraser isn't bulletproof either," she says, and doesn't he know that. "Something changed, though, with Ray?" she goes on. "I don't mind that you didn't tell me earlier, but you did say 'feelings' at the beginning of this conversation."

"Yeah," he says with a sigh. "The feelings are new. Or I guess they aren't, is the thing, but I didn't...I didn't put two and two together until a couple days ago."

"Was it something to do with the debacle at his boxing club?"

"I wanted to throw the case for him," he admits. "For his kid, I mean, but...for him." He has to look away from Stella again to say it. He _hadn't_ thrown the case, he reminds himself, that's the important thing. He can learn from his mistakes.

"Oh, Ray," she says. "What happened?"

"Gave it to Huey and Dewey, officially, but Fraser was the one who figured the whole thing out. As usual."

"Good for you," she says, and he knows she's remembering the Zuko case, just like he is. He'd thought she might leave him over that, when all the dust had finally settled. He would have deserved it.

"So it is serious, then," she says.

"What, the thing with Kowalski? It sounds like he's a disease when you say it that way."

She gives him a look; he's deflecting and he knows it.

"Yeah, it's serious," he allows.

"Thanks for telling me," she says. "It'll be okay, I promise. I'll impart to you all the wisdom of my years of experience on how to pine after one Stanley Raymond Kowalski, and we'll laugh about it. It doesn't have to change anything.”

But it does change things, at least a little. Stella will meet his eyes over Kowalski's head when Kowalski does something particularly endearing, or hot, and Ray feels something weird and fluttery in the pit of his stomach, something sort of like how he felt when he and Stella first got together, and sort of like how he feels when Kowalski smiles at him. So things are a little different, now that all of his cards are on the table, but they're not bad. He and Stella are fine, which is what matters. Ray assumes that’ll be the end of it.

Clearly, he’s forgetting who he married.

"Do you ever think about having sex with Ray?" Stella asks one night, utterly out of the blue, leaning in the bathroom doorway in her underwear. "I mean, you probably do, right? Since you have feelings for him. Are they those kind of feelings?"

Ray, already in bed, feels his face getting kind of hot. "Yeah," he mutters. It's fine, Stella gets it, but saying it out loud still feels weird. "I mean, not just those kind, obviously, but--yeah."

Stella nods. "Tell me about it?" She comes over, and Ray can hear her breathing a little faster. He swallows hard, trying to figure out where to start. Stella climbs onto the bed and curls up against him, running her fingers along the waistband of his pyjamas and making it kind of hard for him to focus.

She hums thoughtfully. "Like when he slides down on the couch, like he's just asking for somebody to get down there between his knees and blow him."

Ray groans against her hair, half turned on and half mortified. "Please tell me it's not that obvious."

"Only because I know you," Stella reassures him. She slides her hand inside his pyjamas. "And because I've wanted to for the last twenty years."

"Fuck," Ray says, because the image of Stella blowing Kowalski in their living room isn't one that's occurred to him before, but he _really_ likes it. Stella grins and kisses him, running her palm over his dick.

"Get out of these," she says, snapping the elastic of his waistband with her other hand. Ray does, awkwardly, trying not to disrupt the rhythm that she's settling into as she jerks him off.

"You'd drive him crazy," she continues, rubbing up against him, all smooth warm skin and scratchy lace from her camisole and panties. "That thing you do with your teeth, I bet he'd love that." She gives him a little sharp bite on the shoulder to emphasise her point.

"You'd have to talk me through it," Ray gasps, sliding his hands up under her camisole to roll her nipples between his fingers. "Teach me how to make it good for him."

"Oh my god, Ray," Stella says. She shifts a little, lifting up so that she can grind against his thigh, hot and damp through the fabric of her panties. Ray runs one hand down her back, circling his fingers over the sensitive spot at the base of her spine that makes her shudder against him.

"You're a quick learner," she murmurs. "You wouldn't need me."

"Yes I would," Ray retorts. "I don't wanna do anything without you, Stell." He kisses her, rolling her onto her back so he can shove his hand down her panties, sliding his fingers between her legs . "Come on, tell me how I'd do it."

"You'd tease him," Stella pants. She's still jerking him off, slow and uneven. "Payback for years and years of sitting there like he's asking for it."

"Okay," Ray agrees. "Tell me how."

"You could unbutton his jeans with your teeth?" Stella says, and Ray makes a skeptical noise.

"Hey, this is my fantasy too," Stella says, squeezing Ray's dick just a little too hard. He yelps.

"Sorry, okay, yeah, I could do that," he agrees. Stella makes an approving noise and kisses him.

"I bet you could make him beg," she continues. "Maybe you could get started while he still had his boxers on, get him good and wet before you let him fuck your mouth." She makes a questioning noise, and Ray sucks in a shivery breath.

"Yeah," he says raggedly.

"But he doesn't get to do that ‘til you're ready," Stella says. She grins at him. "You can start out slow, figure things out." For a few seconds, she goes quiet, panting against his neck as she grinds down against his fingers.

"Got any tips?" Ray manages, starting to get overwhelmed by the sensation of her hand on his dick, her body pressed warm against him, the concentration required to match her rhythm as he works his fingers inside her.

"I could show you how I'd do it," Stella suggests with a smirk.

"Sounds good," Ray gasps. He's pretty proud of himself for still being able to manage words at this point. "But wait, just let me--" He doesn't finish, ducking his head to mouth at her breasts as he rubs his thumb over her clit and curls his fingers inside her, til she arches her back and comes.

"Are you sure you don't want to jerk him off instead?" Stella mumbles against his shoulder. "You've got such good hands."

"Well, I wouldn't say no," Ray says, and feels a little pang at that, even through the happy, warm haze of sex. It's not like he's going to get either option. Stella can probably tell what he's thinking; she gives him a wistful little smile and kisses him.

"Pay attention," she says. "I'll show you exactly how to give a grade A blowjob."

Stella is, Ray thinks for not the first time, way too good for him. And god, he loves her.

Maybe it should feel kind of silly--ignoring the part where they're talking out a shared fantasy about blowing Kowalski--because of course they've done this before, it's not like the way that Stella gives head is anything new to him, but this time is different. She gives him a significant look as she slides down the bed, pulling her hair back so that he can see everything she does. The anticipation of it is making Ray's breath come short, his chest tight.

"Ready?" she asks, and Ray nods, curling his fingers around the back of her neck.

"Remember what I said about starting out slow," Stella says, and demonstrates by kissing Ray's hip, scraping over the curve of it with her teeth. Ray's already so on edge that it's almost enough to make him beg, but Stella's obviously got more plans so he grits his teeth and digs his heels into the bed. She knows exactly how far gone he is, and grins up at him, before leaning over to lick a tortuously slow line up the length of his dick, keeping her eyes on his the whole time. Ray groans, and then thinks about looking up Kowalski's long torso like that, Kowalski watching him, and his dick twitches.

"I'm not even close to finished with you," Stella says, low and amused. "Do you need a minute?"

Ray shakes his head. Stella gives him a few seconds anyway, and then traces the head of his cock with her tongue, licking away the precome swelling at the slit, and pressing the tip of her tongue hard against the especially sensitive spot underneath the head.

"See, you'll be really good at this part," Stella says. Ray's not entirely convinced that blowing Kowalski would really be very much like going down on Stella, but he appreciates the vote of confidence in his oral sex skills, even if he's never going to get to put them into practice. Stella knows all the things that drive him crazy and she pulls them out one by one.

"You probably wouldn't want to try anything like that with your teeth on your first try," she comments. "But I bet he'd like it as much as you do, if you did it right."

She keeps on like that, stopping every few minutes to talk about what it would be like if he were doing to Kowalski what she's doing to him, and by the time that she sucks hard on the head of his dick, Ray's desperate for her to let him come.

"Oh my god, please, Stella, I can't--you gotta let me--"

"Would you jerk yourself off while you were blowing him?" Stella asks, licking her lips. "Or would you wait, so you could fuck me?"

"Whichever one you want, baby," Ray says, because he's maybe about to die if he doesn't get to come in the next thirty seconds, but also because he means it. In some parallel universe where he actually gets to do this with Kowalski, he only wants to do it if Stella's there, if it's as good for her as it is for either of them. He's way past being able to muster the words to tell her that, but he's pretty sure she knows.

Stella stops teasing and takes him as deep as she can, which is pretty damn deep, letting him rock his hips up a little. He tries to be careful, but she still coughs a little when he comes. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, and Ray pulls her up the bed, kissing her and curling his arm around her.

"I bet Ray would let you try it on him, if you asked," Stella murmurs, nuzzling his neck.

"What?" Ray says. This was just supposed to be some mutual fantasizing over the guy they both have a thing for; it wasn't ever supposed to enter the realm of reality. Just because Kowalski likes guys doesn't mean he wants Ray's mouth on his dick, and Ray's pretty sure that Kowalski would have some pretty strong opinions about his best friend's husband wanting to get him off.

“He likes you,” says Stella. He can only see the top of her head, but he can hear the smile in her voice. “I catch him sneaking glances at you when you’re not looking.”

“That’s not exactly proof,” he protests.

“Which one of us has known him since his first crush? Oh, wait, that’s me.”

“Well, maybe you’re projecting. Just in this one case, you are a little biased.”

“We always did have similar taste in guys,” Stella says, propping her head on his chest and giving him a mischievous little grin. Ray groans.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I just thought you might want to think on it. Just in case, you know? Seems like a pity to have a chance with him and not use it.”

It’s weird, that he can feel his heart ache for her without any accompanying jealousy. If Kowalski does want him- and he doesn’t even know how to wrap his mind around that possibility, however slim it is- that’s one good reason to never do anything about it. He couldn’t ever hurt Stella like that.

Unless she _wants_ to use him as an intermediary, as a chance to get a glimpse of what she can’t have.

“Okay, okay, I can see your brain putting off steam,” she says, half-sitting to pull up the covers that they’ve managed to tangle around their feet. “I didn’t meant to stress you out. It’s just something to think about, that’s all.”

“If you say so,” he says.

“I do.” She leans over to kiss him. “And while you’re thinking on it, would you get the light?”

***

Most people would probably say it starts like this:

Ray spends a day trying to convince himself that he's not going to take Stella and Vecchio up on their offer. It's a lost cause. There's no way it'll end well, but before it ends it's apparently going to involve Vecchio sucking him off, and no way is Ray going to let that chance pass him by. If he was the kind of person who made decisions based on self-preservation he wouldn't have gotten the earring in the first place, or at least he would have waited until he was out of his parents' house to do it. If he made decisions based on self-preservation he wouldn't spend so much time pretending he lives at Stella and Vecchio's apartment, either.

He is who he is, though, and logic rarely wins out over impulse. It's impulse that makes him pick up the phone on Saturday night and call them, even though he doesn't have any idea what he's going to say. He doesn't even know which of them he wants to answer the phone.

It rings three times before someone picks up.

"Ray Vecchio."

Ray closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the wall.

"That offer still good?" he asks, not bothering to identify himself. Vecchio only pauses for a split second.

"It's good. It's good whenever you want."

"Is Stella home tonight?"

"Yeah."

"You guys have plans?"

"I guess we do now. You coming over?"

"Yes." He opens his eyes and looks around the quiet apartment, thinking of showering, changing, traffic. "Give me an hour."

"Okay."

"You sure this is a good idea?"

"No," says Vecchio, and it suddenly dawns on Ray that Vecchio's _scared_. It makes him feel better, weirdly, that he's not the only one off-balance here.

"Yeah, me neither. So why are we doing it?"

"You want to, right?"

"Fuck yes I want to," he says vehemently, and Vecchio swallows.

"So we're doing it because I want to, and because you want to, and because I've been driving myself crazy watching you and wanting to touch you, imagining what it's like, and I want to know for real. And besides, Stella's been giving me blowjob lessons, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste."

"I'll be there," manages Ray, and hangs up. It's really not fair, the way Vecchio can switch from nervous to calm seduction in a heartbeat. He'd done it at dinner last night, too. Ray is going to complain to Stella next time he sees her. Which will be in an hour. This is insane.

He takes an extra-thorough shower, trying not to think too hard about anything, and then stands in front of his closet at a complete loss. What's the dress code for your best friend's husband sucking you off, anyway? He has outfits for picking up guys, but Vecchio is- somehow- a sure thing. It's more of a booty call than anything. He's never had a booty call before. He definitely doesn't have a booty call outfit. The person he usually calls for advice is Stella, too, so he's on his own.

He waffles long enough to make himself late and ends up with just one of his more presentable shirts, solid black without a logo and a little less worn than most of what he owns. He throws his leather jacket on top, checks his hair in the mirror one last time, and gets all the way out to his car before he realizes he forgot to brush his teeth. He doesn't even know if kissing Vecchio is on the table, but he really, really wants it to be, and he's already late anyway, so he goes back.

Stella answers the door when he gets there. He's made up some time on the road, but she still looks relieved to see him.

"We were starting to wonder if you'd changed your mind," she says.

"Nope, just late, as usual," he tells her, rooting in the hall closet for a hanger. It gives him an excuse not to look at her while he adds, "Are you sure you're okay with me sleeping with your husband?"

"Are you sure you're okay with me watching?" she replies.

"Totally sure," he says, and manages not to ask if she wants to participate. He's pretty sure Stella thinks he got over her after they broke up in high school, which is probably a reasonable assumption; most people who confess their love at seventeen move on pretty fast. Not so one Stanley Raymond Kowalski. Or maybe it's not even about him, maybe it's just that you'd have to be nuts to ever get over Stella.

He finishes messing with his jacket and turns back to the room just in time to see Vecchio come in. He's wearing the green sweater that Stella got him for Christmas last year; he knows because she'd made him demo it in the store, since he and Vecchio are basically the same size. It makes him swallow around a catch in his throat, partially because it does amazing things for Vecchio's eyes, but also because it's a reminder of just how much he's wrapped up in their lives, just exactly what he's giving up if this goes wrong. Too late to back out now, though.

"You want a beer or something?" asks Vecchio. He looks nervous.

"Sure," says Ray, even though he doesn't, really. He drifts awkwardly into the kitchen after Vecchio, who gets two bottles out of the fridge. There's a moment where neither of them are really sure if they're sitting down or going back to the living room or what. They end up just standing stiffly in the kitchen. He'd sort of figured that Vecchio might have some kind of plan, an idea of how things should go, but apparently not. Ray takes a sip of his beer.

"Hey, that's not bad," he says, turning it to look at the label. He doesn't often agree with Vecchio's taste.

"Picked it up on a whim, but I like it," Vecchio agrees. They lapse into tense silence again. It's maybe the most uncomfortable Ray's ever been in his adult life; he's trying to figure out if there's any way to get out of the whole thing when suddenly music starts playing in the other room, one of their practice tapes.

"You two are hopeless," says Stella, coming around the corner. "I thought I'd leave you to your own devices, but obviously that isn't going to work. Come on." She takes both beer bottles, sets them on the counter, and leads them into the living room.

"You can practice your waltzing," she says. "It worked well enough last time."

"It did?" Ray asks.

"Yeah," admits Vecchio, avoiding his eyes. That's interesting. Ray tries not to smirk.

"I'll wait for you in the bedroom," says Stella. "Don’t worry so much. Even if this doesn't go well we'll all still be friends. Just, friends who know what Ray's dick looks like."

That breaks the tension, startling a laugh out of both of them. Stella pats him on the chest with a grin and leaves. Only Stella, he thinks fondly, and there's an odd moment when he realizes that the expression on his own face, watching her go, is probably the exact same as the one on Vecchio's.

Vecchio turns to him, shrugging and holding out his hands.

"Well, the lady says dance," he says, and for one breathtaking second Ray wonders if Vecchio might take orders from Stella so easily all night. 

"You sure you remember how to do this?" Ray asks, taking Vecchio's hands.

Vecchio snorts. "I live to be a hundred, I'm still probably gonna remember how to do this," he says. "I spent long enough practicing." He sounds caustic, but he's rubbing his thumb over the palm of Ray's left hand, and somehow that's making Ray's knees feel kind of rubbery. It's not enough to affect his dancing though. Vecchio has a little trouble getting into the rhythm in the middle of the tape, but Ray counts the first few beats for him out loud, and Vecchio picks it up, not smooth, maybe, but competent, the way he'd been at the wedding.

At first it’s pretty clear that all of Vecchio’s concentration is going into counting his steps, and that’s good, it breaks the weird tension between them. He relaxes into it after a while, though, and Ray can feel the shift in his body when he goes from thinking about his feet to actually dancing _with_ Ray. He takes the opportunity to nudge Vecchio’s arm back into proper position. The touch makes Vecchio look at him, and wow, Ray’s not used to dancing with someone who’s right on his eye level.

Vecchio's giving him this dark, intent look that makes Ray's skin feel hot and prickly. The tension is back for sure, though differently now, charged instead of strained. He doesn't know how to transition from dancing Vecchio in slow circles around the living room to the bedroom that he shares with Stella, and getting naked--even thinking about it is overwhelming. And Vecchio just keeps on giving him that look, and it feels like the only possible thing Ray can do is lean in and kiss him.

Vecchio stumbles a little over the shift from waltzing to kissing, but then he steadies himself and kisses Ray back. He's better at that than he is at dancing, and Ray gets kind of caught up in it, his hands sliding down Vecchio's back, hips pressed up against Vecchio's. Vecchio's hands slide under Ray's shirt, fingers splayed warm against his skin, and just that nearly takes his breath away. The tape whirs to a stop while they stand there, kissing and groping each other like teenagers, and a few seconds later, Ray hears Stella clear her throat in the doorway.

"Well, that’s better," she says approvingly. "How do you feel about moving it to the bedroom?"

"I feel pretty good about that," Ray says. "Vecchio?"

"Yeah," Vecchio agrees. His voice is a little hoarse, and Ray flashes back to what he'd said about Stella giving him blowjob lessons, and almost makes a really embarrassing noise.

Stella and Vecchio have a queen sized bed with soft white sheets and a lot of pillows. Ray's hung out on it watching Stella get ready to go dancing and stretched out beside her, reading over her shoulder as she works her way through another romance novel. While Vecchio was in Vegas, Ray sometimes stayed with her in here until she fell asleep. He's pretty comfortable in their bedroom, usually.

But that's when he's not here because Vecchio is going to suck his dick. He should probably take off his pants, that seems like a good starting place, make things easy for Vecchio. But once he's got his pants off, it feels stupid to just be standing there in his shirt and boxers, and it would be stupid to leave his shirt on and take his boxers off, so he strips naked, and then realises that everybody else is still fully dressed.

"You gotta at least take your shirt off," he tells Vecchio, fighting the urge to hold his discarded clothes in front of him like a shield.

Vecchio's wearing a wifebeater underneath his sweater, and he hesitates for a second before Stella does something with her eyebrows that makes him shuck it off and toss them both on the floor. Ray's seen Vecchio shirtless before, but he still takes a second to appreciate it. He sees Stella doing the same thing, and then she looks at Ray and smiles a little, like she’s sharing it with him, and he has no idea what to do with that.

Vecchio runs a hand over his head and says, "Are you gonna get on the bed or what, Kowalski?"

It feels weird, climbing onto Stella's side of the bed, but it'd feel weirder taking Vecchio's. After a second Stella comes up too, sitting cross-legged near the foot of the bed. Vecchio glances between them, and then licks his lips. Ray's stomach turns over.

Then Vecchio's bending over his lap, looking up at him through his eyelashes like he's making sure Ray's still on board with this plan.

"Wait," Ray says, when it's apparent that Vecchio has no intentions of showing a little common sense. "Tell me to put a condom on, you moron!"

Vecchio blinks at him. "I figured you were clean. Or you, uh, would’ve said something."

"I am,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face. He'd gotten tested with Andrew and hasn't been with anybody since, and shit, he hadn’t even thought about how long it’s been, how long since going out and meeting someone started to be less appealing than hanging out at Stella and Vecchio’s place. God, he is so fucked.

"--but that is not the point. The point is you cannot just make assumptions like that. You go putting your mouth on some guy's dick, you make him wear a condom, you got it?"

Vecchio holds up his hands. "Sure, whatever."

"I am _serious_ , Vecchio," Ray says. "Maybe you don't know what AIDS can do to somebody, but trust me, it ain't pretty. I don’t care how much you think you can trust the person, people lie, and people don’t always know if they’ve got it, so use a goddamn condom. If the guy says no condom, you say no sex.”

"Do you ever listen to anything we tell you? I'm not just going around picking guys up off the street," Vecchio retorts.

“Wherever,” Ray says. “That’s what I’m saying, even if it seems safe, even you think you know the guy, just be careful, okay?”

“You are missing the point here, Kowalski,” says Vecchio, exasperated.

“ _You’re_ missing the point,” he says, which sounds stupid and childish, but the idea that Vecchio just doesn’t get it is making him sick. He can't stand the thought of anything like that happening to Vecchio, or Stella. It hurts to even think about it.

"Ray," says Stella gently, before Ray can say anything back to that. His and Vecchio's eyes both snap to her. "We’ll be careful, okay? I promise. If we ever do this with anyone else.” She and Vecchio exchange a quick look at that, but he doesn’t catch Vecchio’s expression, and he has no idea what it means. “I think you can save the safe sex talk."

"Yeah," Ray mumbles. "Sorry. I just worry, you know?" He’s probably completely ruined the mood, too. The atmosphere had been awkward enough already before he stuck his foot in his mouth.

"And we both appreciate it," Stella says. Ray hates the way that _we_ makes his heart clench a little. "But there’s no one in the world we trust more than you, so if you say we’re good then I think we’re safe for tonight, okay?”

“Yeah,” says Ray quietly. She’s holding his gaze, eyes serious and warm, and it’s not like he ever forgets how lucky he is to have her as his best friend but sometimes it still takes his breath away. Then he glances over, because Vecchio has less reason to trust him that Stella does, but Vecchio just smiles his agreement and rubs a thumb over Ray’s knee.

Suddenly, the fact that he’s naked comes into very sharp focus.

“Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, there's something a lot more fun that you guys could be doing," Stella says brightly. When he looks up she grins at him, the same grin from when they'd ogle hot guys together when she was in college, and Ray can’t help grinning back. Then Stella's gaze is sliding away from his, her cheeks flushing, and Vecchio ducks his head again.

"You can take your time," Ray mumbles, when Vecchio hesitates. He's rubbing his thumbs over Ray's hipbones now, kinda nervously, and it's equal parts endearing and hot. "You know, don't forget to breathe."

"Thanks for the tip, Kowalski," Vecchio says dryly, but he pats Ray's hip. Then he licks up the length of Ray's dick. Ray curls his fists up in the sheets, because he's not sure how much Vecchio's okay with him touching him while they do this.

Stella's watching them but still not quite meeting Ray's eyes, her attention focused on Vecchio. He swirls his tongue over the head of Ray's dick, and then takes it into his mouth and sucks a little, giving Ray an uncertain look.

"You're a natural," Ray says shakily, and Vecchio lets out a little huff of amusement and slants his eyes over at Stella. Ray looks over at her too; she's got a hand tucked in the front of her pants, moving lazily, and the sight of it hits him like a punch to the gut. When she said she wanted to watch he’d assumed that she meant just to keep tabs on her husband. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might be _interested._ Not that he can blame her- hell, he’d watch porn of Vecchio blowing somebody, if he could- but he hadn’t counted on being part of a show. It makes his breath catch and something shivery and hot start up under his skin, and he can’t tear his eyes away until Stella looks up and catches him staring.

She gives him a worried look, like she’s wondering if he minds, and he breathes out _‘s good_ without really knowing which one of them he’s talking to. Vecchio's getting more comfortable now, sliding up and down Ray's dick, jerking him a little out of rhythm. Ray closes his eyes and lets his hand drift to the back of Vecchio's neck, and when Vecchio doesn't protest, Ray helps him figure out his rhythm, just like dancing.

Ray can hear Stella breathing a little harder, feel her eyes on them, and he can't resist looking at her again. There's a sheen of sweat on her collarbone and he can see the tension in her shoulders and stomach. Vecchio's mouth is hot and wet, and he's still watching Ray, like he's been doing the whole time, and all of it is too much, too good. Ray's going to come, and he isn't ready for this to be over, doesn't want this to be all he ever gets of Vecchio, of Stella.

"You can fuck me," Ray blurts, and that pushes back the rush of orgasm, because the bottom feels like it's dropping out of his stomach. Vecchio freezes, staring at him. "I mean, if you want to, if it's okay with Stella," he babbles. Vecchio sits up, slow, like it takes some effort to coordinate, and looks at Stella. Ray hopes like hell that he hasn't fucked everything up. But Stella's nodding, standing up and disappearing into the bathroom.

"Where did you put the condoms, Ray?"

"Under the sink," Vecchio calls back. He's got his slacks off and is rifling through the nightstand. His hands are a little shaky, rattling the drawer as he shuts it, and for a second Ray is swamped by how much he wants to just curl up around Vecchio and promise him that it’s fine, that everything will be all right. The thought freezes him in place for a second, because what the hell is he doing here, asking Vecchio to fuck him, breaking his own heart?

“Kowalski?” Vecchio’s rolling a bottle of KY between his palms to warm it up, giving him a concerned look. Ray tugs him down for a kiss instead of answering. He doesn’t want to know what Vecchio saw on his face just then.

When he pulls back to breathe Stella’s lingering in the doorway, watching them, holding a strip of condoms in one hand. She’s wearing just her bra and panties.

“Okay?” she says. Ray nods, even though he doesn’t know if she’s talking about the condoms or about stripping down. Vecchio has one hand on the back of his neck and Stella’s staring at it like she can’t help herself, and if this is all he ever gets of either of them then he’ll just have to make it count.

After a second, he pulls away from Vecchio's hand and lies down on his back, shoving a couple of pillows out of the way and pulling up his knees.

"You know what you're doing?" he asks.

"This part isn't exactly uncharted territory," Vecchio says.

"Twenty years of stories about your love life taught me a thing or two about gay sex," Stella says to Ray. "It was pretty useful."

"Huh," says Ray, because most of his braincells are suddenly occupied with imagining Stella fingering Vecchio, which is a new and insanely hot mental image. He only has a couple of seconds to think about it, though, because Vecchio rips open the condom and rolls it on, and then he's slicking up his fingers, and Ray has never paid such close attention to anything in his _life_.

"You sure this is okay?" Vecchio asks, and at first Ray thinks he's asking Stella, but Vecchio's looking at him. Both of them are.

"Positive," Ray says.

Vecchio's expression is exactly the same as when Ray tried to teach him to waltz, anxious, but determined to get it right. He takes his time, and in any other situation Ray would try to speed things up, but not tonight. If he could he would close his eyes and just keep Vecchio’s gorgeous fucking hands on him forever. Eventually Vecchio figures out where his prostate is and Ray shivers and swears, his dick leaking onto his belly, while Vecchio drives him insane, watching Ray's reactions intently. Beside them Stella lets out a choked-off whimper and Ray cranes his neck to see her better.

"Is this good?" Vecchio asks, twisting his fingers a little. "I mean, do you need more, or can I--"

Part of Ray wants to tell him no way, he definitely needs more prep, to give into his shameless desire to draw this out as long as possible. But Vecchio's voice is just this side of desperate, and Ray can't resist . It's going to end eventually, no matter what he does, and teasing Vecchio isn't going to do anything to change that, or make it any easier.

"Yeah, you definitely can," Ray says.

Vecchio slicks himself up with that same careful, studied attention from earlier, and then he's sliding in, keeping his eyes fixed on Ray's face the whole time.

"Good," Ray sighs, and Vecchio just looks at him and doesn't move. Ray doesn't have any leverage in this position, but he rocks his hips a little, and Vecchio lets out a sharp breath. "C'mon, Vecchio, what are you waiting for?"

Ray's always figured that dancing and fucking were part of the same skillset; he's got some pretty compelling evidence. Not that he thought Vecchio'd be terrible in bed or anything, but he wasn't expecting Vecchio to be this _good_ , either. Vecchio starts out slow, fucking him deep and steady, and making Ray shudder, all that amazing, perfect feeling rippling out until he can feel it in his fingertips. Vecchio's watching, making sure everything is good, and Ray can see it on his face the second he decides to ramp it up some.

He slows back down and looks a little worried when Ray braces his hands on the headboard to keep from sliding up the bed, but Ray shakes his head violently and grits, "Do not even think about it." That gets him a shaky huff of laughter from Vecchio, and a sharp, high groan from Stella.

Ray's dick is leaking all over his stomach, but he's not a kid any more, and no matter how good Vecchio is it's gonna take a little more than that to get Ray there. But that's okay, he's not in any hurry, even though he can hear himself babbling, "Christ, please, Vecchio," over and over in this wrecked, needy voice. Vecchio tries shifting his weight so he can free up a hand to touch Ray, but it fucks up his rhythm, and Ray makes a whiny, embarrassing noise of protest.

“Jesus, Kowalski, I’m trying,” Vecchio says. “Give me a break, some of us haven’t done this before.” There’s just a little bit of a smile in his tone, and of course Vecchio keeps bitching in bed, of _course_ he does. Something about the familiarity of it combined with the way Vecchio’s voice has gone low and rough, how he’s panting for breath, hits Ray like a fucking punch to the gut.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you don’t have to,” he manages, sparing one of his own hands for a second to grab Vecchio’s and plant it back on the bed. “Just don’t _stop_.” He arches his back and wraps one leg around Vecchio’s waist, just in case he isn’t getting his point across. Stella sucks in a breath next to him, though it’s almost drowned out by Vecchio’s wordless groan and the way he snaps his hips forward again, hard, perfect. Ray squeezes his eyes shut and readjusts his grip on the headboard. He doesn’t care if he gets to come, he can just jerk off after Vecchio finishes, all he wants is this.

Then the bed dips as Stella moves closer to them, and when Ray opens his eyes she’s watching him intently. She's biting her lip, and she looks terrified, but she's also got that determined glint in her eye that Ray's loved since they were kids.

"Can I help?" she says. For a second Ray doesn’t even process what she’s asking, but he nods anyway. He's not ever going to say no to her, and especially not with Vecchio trembling above him with the effort of slowing down again, letting Stella have space for whatever it is she wants.

Then Stella reaches out a hand, and Ray finally gets it, and he says, "Yeah, Stella, yes, I want you to, I--" and he bites his tongue and cranes up to kiss Vecchio instead, before he can say anything that will ruin this.

The first touch of Stella’s hand wrings an embarrassing noise out of him, but at least he doesn’t come on the spot. It’s a close thing. The two of them had spent a lot of time in high school making out, pressing up against each other in the back seat of the Goat, but they hadn’t ever managed to get undressed; Ray’s been fantasizing about Stella touching him since he was sixteen years old.

Vecchio kisses him back, hard and messy and a little desperate, but neither of them have the coordination to keep it up. Instead Ray tilts his head back as Stella jerks him off fast and hard, perfectly in rhythm with Vecchio. He can feel his orgasm rushing down on him like a freight train. He's not sure what he says when he comes, maybe Stella's name, or Vecchio's, or maybe nothing, maybe just noise, but he feels Stella pull away as soon as he's finished, and then Vecchio's coming too. Later, he's probably going to regret that he didn't get to see that, but right now his brain and all his nerve endings are on overload and it's all he can do to just like there and feel it while Vecchio pulls out-- _ow_ \--and gets rid of the condom. The mattress shifts, and there's the sound of water running in the bathroom for a few seconds, and then quiet. It takes Ray a couple of seconds to realize that Vecchio's come back and is talking to him.

"You okay if I help Stella out over here?"

That makes Ray's brain get it together real quick.

"Hey, it's your bed," he says carefully. He's not sure what he's supposed to do. They'd tell him if they wanted him to leave, right? And they're definitely not doing that. Vecchio is kissing Stella, one of his hands down the front of her panties, the other fumbling with the clasp of her bra. Ray's staring, but if they're not going to kick him out, he figures that's okay.

Stella's been pretty quiet so far, but now she's making all kinds of breathless, happy noises, and Vecchio's whispering stuff against her skin, too quiet for Ray to really make out. It feels like a long time before Stella makes an impatient noise and shoves her hips down insistently against Vecchio's hand. Vecchio grins at her, and starts kissing his way down her neck, real slow and thorough.

Stella's lips are shiny-looking, a little swollen, and Ray wants to kiss her more than maybe he's ever wanted to do anything in his entire life, at least before tonight.

And maybe he can--she'd helped him out, this isn't too different, if Ray doesn't think about it too hard. Maybe she’d like it. He makes himself ask before he can chicken out.

"Hey Stell, would it be okay if I kissed you?"

Stella’s eyes flutter open and she stares at him, holding his eyes long enough that he’s on the verge of backpedalling when she finally nods, just the smallest movement. Vecchio makes an approving noise from where he's been teasing her left nipple with his teeth.

Ray tries to keep it short, he really does, but Stella just opens right up under his mouth, and this is the first time he's kissed her in almost twenty years, and it's going to be the last time, so Ray's going to go along with whatever Stella wants to give him. He doesn't care if it's just because Vecchio's going down on her and everything feels good, Stella's kissing him hard and wet, groaning into his mouth, and that's more than enough for Ray.

Down the bed, Vecchio must do something really amazing, because Stella yelps and her teeth catch Ray's lower lip, and there's no way he's getting hard again, but it still sends a bolt of heat zinging through him. Stella reaches up and gets her hands in his hair, pulling a little. That doesn't feel like something she's just doing because he's there, and she's getting some really fantastic oral sex; Ray's had plenty of people's hands in his hair, and he knows what it feels like when people go for it with intent.

Before he can really process the implications of that, or do anything about it, Stella groans, "Oh fuck, _Ray_ \--" against his mouth, and she means Vecchio, she has to, but Ray's not thinking about that, he's not thinking about anything but Stella, and memorizing the exact sound of her groaning his name while she kissed him.

She's getting close, squirming and rocking her hips under Vecchio's mouth, and then she gasps and arches up off the bed, her fingers tightening in Ray's hair. Vecchio makes a satisfied noise, and Stella shudders all over, and this time, Ray does get to watch as she comes. He's can't bring himself to look away, even afterwards when she opens her eyes, and stares at him like maybe he's sprouted antennae without realizing it.

Instead he leans down and kisses her one last time, softly, saying goodbye. Or at least he means to; when he starts to pull away she chases his lips, adjusting her grip on his hair to a gentle tug that sends shivers down his spine. He goes willingly. She's still breathing hard, making the kiss a little messy. Maybe that means she's not quite done, that this still counts as part of whatever crazy thing they're doing.

He would believe that- it's not like he knows anything about women coming down from orgasms- but they keep kissing even after she's relaxed completely underneath him. It just turns into something else, something sweet and slow that's a world away from what he remembers of high school. Ray closes his eyes and keeps them closed. He doesn't know what's happening here, but he knows that stopping would mean breaking the spell of whatever it is, so he doesn't dare. Stella's doing the same thing, both of them barely pulling away enough to breathe when they have to.

He loses track of time a little bit, not wanting to think. After a while the kisses heat up again and Stella starts to squirm a little against the sheets, making little half-noises into his mouth that his mind had forgotten but his body sure as hell remembers, like a sudden full-body dunking back into being seventeen and _desperate_ for her. He dares to run a hand down her side and she shudders all over.

"Again, Stell?" says Vecchio quietly, and Ray jerks back, eyes snapping open. _Shit_.

"Woah, hey," says Vecchio, putting a steadying hand on his thigh. He's looking at Stella, though. "I was just thinking, if you wanted to go again, maybe Kowalski could help me out this time?"

Ray sits very still. He's pretty sure he's fucked this up, and if he hasn't then he's definitely about to, and it would be really awesome if his brain would get to solving that problem instead of just going _Naked. Vecchio. Hand. Thigh._ Stella sits halfway up but seems just as lost for words as he is, though he isn't sure if that's good or bad. Vecchio has really long fingers.

"Okay," says Vecchio with an exaggerated sigh, "I guess we're doing this in baby steps. Kowalski, would you like to help me out?"

“Ray-” starts Stella, frowning, but Vecchio says,

“Give him a chance.”

"Uh," says Ray intelligently. There's got to be a right answer here, but hell if he knows what it is. He can feel both of their eyes on him. He looks down instead of meeting either gaze and notices that Vecchio's got his other hand on Stella's hip, rubbing little circles there with his thumb, and for some reason that makes him decide on honesty.

“If Stella wants me to, then...yeah.”

“Stell?” prompts Vecchio. There’s silence for a second, and Ray looks up just in time to notice the tail end of whatever nonverbal conversation they’re having.

“I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with,” Stella says finally, turning to him. He gives her his best grin, though it comes out a little shaky.

“Who says I’m uncomfortable?”

“Ray, you don’t even like women!”

He blinks. Something makes him glance at Vecchio, who’s watching him steadily, and then back at Stella, who has the same expression of mild annoyance that he’s seen her turn on a million small problems and unsatisfactory people.

“Yes I do?” he says. It sounds a little bewildered, probably because that’s how he feels, but he clears his throat and says it again anyway, more definitely. “I do.”

“But-” says Stella, and then can’t seem to finish the sentence.

“You were there for high school, right?” he says. “You went out with me for a while? We made out in movie theaters a lot? I said I loved you after two weeks and you said wasn’t I rushing things?”

“Well, yeah, but then you showed up on my doorstep with an earring and said your parents were kicking you out!”

“Well, you went out with Rob Basinger!”

“For three weeks!”

They stare at each other for a second. Ray has this feeling like something expanding in his chest and he breathes carefully around it, almost afraid to think, because he maybe he finally gets what’s going on. Abruptly, Stella starts to laugh.

“Oh my god,” she says, dropping her face into her hands, “are you telling me that you’re- that you went and got the earring and started sleeping with guys because I dated Rob Basigner for three weeks in twelfth grade?”

“That is a little bit pathetic, Kowalski,” says Vecchio, patting his thigh. He’s grinning, though, and Ray can feel an answering grin breaking out on his own face.

“I liked guys before that,” he says, “but yeah, the earring was the money I was saving to take her to prom.”

“ _Ray_ ,” says Stella, despairing.

“It looks good on you, though,” says Vecchio, tracing the curve of his ear with a finger. Ray really isn’t expecting that; he manages to stop himself from shivering but he can’t help the little gaspy breath he takes. Vecchio and Stella both look at him sharply with the same interested expression.

“Uh, thanks,” he says, suddenly very aware that all of them are naked. Stella sits all the way up and reaches out a hand for the short hair on the back of his neck again; he lets her pull him into another kiss.

“Rob Basinger was a jerk,” she murmurs against his lips. “All the dates we went on were boring. And you’re a better kisser.” Vecchio cracks up next to him and Ray can’t hold back a smile enough to keep kissing Stella, so instead he buries his face in her neck.

“You sure know what a guy wants to hear,” he says, ignoring the petty little part of him that actually is pleased at her words.

“I try my best.” She runs her fingers through his hair again, and he laughs.

“How did I go eighteen years without realizing that you have a thing about my hair?”

“Kept it a secret,” she says, shrugging, and there’s just a little bit of wistfulness in the words, but it’s enough to make him sit up again so he can look her in the eye.

“Stell, I never stopped loving you,” he says. “I might have said it too soon, but I meant it, and I swear I never stopped for a single day.”

He only gets a glimpse of her thunderstruck expression before she kisses him again, but this time it’s almost like she’s trying to climb him, surging up on her knees, and he only just manages to brace himself on his hands before she knocks him over entirely. Stella’s got a grip on his hair again and he wants to touch her so badly he could cry, but he’s taking both of their weight and if he moves his hands they’re going to go over backwards. He can hear himself make a frustrated noise.

“All right, I got you,” says Vecchio, and then he’s pressed warm and solid against Ray’s back. Ray relaxes by degrees, testing, but Vecchio’s steady behind him, so he wraps his hands around Stella’s hips.

She pulls back to look at him. It's the strangest mix of familiar and new, because he knows how to hold her like this, knows years of the way their bodies move together, knows how to use just the slightest shift of his weight or movement of his arm to lead her through anything-- but he doesn't know how to let his hand slide up to her breast, doesn't know what to do then. They got this far in high school, but he's not fooling himself that he had any clue what he was doing.

"Uh," he says, hesitating. "What- what's good?"

"So you really haven't slept with any women, then," says Vecchio, sounding amused, but he reaches out to guide Ray's hand.

"Not many women I know are interested. I think it's the earring. Or maybe the boyfriends." He's trying for sarcasm but doesn't quite get there, too fascinated with the softness of Stella's skin. She gives him a wicked smile and runs a finger over his ear, tugging lightly at the earring, because of course she noticed that. Vecchio chuckles when it does make him shiver this time.

"There's one woman you know who's interested," she says.

"She'd like it better if you used your mouth," says Vecchio, low into Ray's other's ear. There's something about being trapped between the two of them, something about the way Vecchio's instructing him, that makes it easier to duck his head and just do it. Stella will tell him if it isn't right.

She doesn't say anything of the sort. Instead she makes a bitten-off little sound and braces a hand on his shoulder to lean past him and kiss Vecchio, judging by the sounds. It's not exactly comfortable, the three of them folded together like this, but he can _feel_ both of their breath picking up, and that's worth anything.

“So, Ray,” says Stella over his head, “did I hear you say that there was something else you wanted to teach him?”

***

But it actually starts like this:

Stella wakes up a few times during the night, mostly when Ray Kowalski jostles her. The bed isn’t really big enough for three people and he’s an active sleeper, which she’d known, but it’s an entirely different thing when he’s sprawled naked between her and her husband. The first time she wakes up he’s kicking her in the knees. The second time he’s turned the other way, curled into a ball with his face pressed against Ray Vecchio’s back. She has to smile at that.

It’s hard to make herself go back to sleep; her body is worn out but her mind wants to race, to go over everything that was said and everything that wasn’t, to figure out what on earth the morning is bringing. She must drift off eventually, though, because the next time she wakes up the room is bright and she and Ray Kowalski are the only ones there. He’s on his stomach, sprawled out to take advantage of the space Ray Vecchio left behind. Stella twists to glance at the clock. It’s just after eight, which is early for her on a Sunday, but then they went to sleep earlier than usual, too.

She eases out of bed as carefully as she can. The scattering of clothes across the bedroom floor is a testament to how exactly they’d spent the night, and also to the fact that none of them wanted to get out of bed afterward, to break the spell of the moment and have to think about practicalities and complications and how to deal with the fact that there were three sets of clothes on the floor but only two dressers in the room. She doesn’t want to make noise rattling drawers, so she grabs a pair of reasonably clean sweatpants from the top of the laundry basket and yesterday’s bra off the floor. After a moment’s consideration she puts the green sweater Ray was wearing last night on top. It doesn’t really fit her, but it smells like him, and she could use something familiar and grounding this morning.

She closes the bedroom door quietly behind her and pads out to the kitchen. There’s coffee brewing and Ray’s leaning against the counter watching it vaguely, apparently lost in thought.

“Morning,” she says, keeping her voice low even though they’re all the way on the other side of the apartment. He snaps into focus and gives her a soft smile.

“Hey,” he says. “You’re up early.” She goes over and stands on tiptoe to give him a good morning kiss, and then just lets herself stay there for a minute, tucking her head against his shoulder and breathing him in. He smooths a strand of hair behind her ear.

“So,” she says, and then makes herself take a couple of steps back. This is really a conversation they need to have face to face, no matter how much she’d rather stay wrapped up in him, or drag them both back to bed to join Ray Kowalski in ignoring the world.

“So,” he echoes. They’re both still speaking quietly. Everything feels oddly delicate, like the two of them standing there in the kitchen with the smell of coffee and the streaming morning sun are actually balanced on some kind of precipice. Which they are, maybe. She isn’t sure what’s going to happen from here, but as much as she promised that they could go back to the way things were, she doesn’t think it’s true.

“That didn’t go quite how I expected,” she begins.

“No, me neither,” he says. “I should’ve known, though. No guy could spend that much time with you without falling head over heels.”

“He could if he was gay!”

“Which he isn’t,” Ray points out, amused. Stella puts her face in her hands, muffling a laugh.

“I figured that out, yeah.”

“Took you long enough, though. You really didn’t think he was into you in high school?

“Lots of gay men have dated women,” she protests. “I thought he just hadn’t figured it out yet. And we were best friends, if he was going to convince himself he could feel something for a woman it was obviously going to be me.”

“Or else he was just as madly in love with you then as he’s been ever since,” says Ray. “Hey, that’s good, right? That you two feel the same way about each other after all?”

It occurs to her suddenly that this could look wildly different from his point of view, his wife suddenly finding out that the friend she’s been pining after for years actually wants her back. She grabs his hand and tugs him over so he’s standing right in front of her.

“Ray, I am absolutely not leaving you,” she tells him. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it needed saying, it’s such an obvious truth in her life.

“I didn’t think you were,” he says.

“Not ever,” she adds, looping her arms around his neck and kissing him between the words. “Not for anyone. Or anything.”

“You’ve got me as long as you want me,” he says, low and serious, and cups her cheek to kiss her back.

They get a little distracted for a minute.

The click-thunk of the coffee machine turning off brings them back to reality. Ray pulls away, smoothing her hair back again with a little smile.

“I’m glad you’re not leaving me,” he says, “but what do you want to do about Kowalski?”

“What do _you_ want to do?” she asks. It’s not a deflection; she’s actually not sure where he stands on everything that happened, now that they’re past the heat of the moment.

He takes a minute to think about it, clearly trying to put something into words. He starts and stops a couple of times before taking a deep breath.

“Bear with me for a minute, okay?” he says. She nods. “There’s this thing where...it’s like he moved in with us accidentally. I know he doesn’t actually live here, and he isn’t here all the time, but it feels like he is. Or it feels like he should be. He picks up groceries at least once a month, he empties the dishwasher when it’s full, and not like he’s asking if he can help us clean to be polite, he just does it automatically. That’s not...that’s not what friends do when they come over, you know? Even good friends.”

“I know what you mean,” she says, but he’s not finished.

“And we always know his schedule. We plan around it. And have you noticed the way that he always ends up part of phone conversations? If I call you and he’s here, or he calls you and I’m here, we always end up just talking the three of us.”

“And I always have to relay the two of you fighting about baseball or something when you can’t actually hear each other, yeah, I’ve noticed,” she says, but she can’t make it sound anything other than fond.

Ray pauses, weighing his words again.

“That’s...I don’t want to give that up. I don’t know how it wound up this way, but it’s like he’s part of us, you know? He already was, before we did any of this.”

It’s true. She hadn’t really thought about it like that, but he’s absolutely right.

“And last night?” she asks. He makes an abortive gesture with his hands.

“I- I’d fuck him again, if that’s what you mean,” he says. He blushes a little, but his eyes go dark and intent at the same time. “I want to, but not more than I don’t want to lose the rest of it. I don’t even know if that makes sense.”

“It does,” she tells him. “It makes perfect sense. And I don’t think you need to worry about losing the rest of it. Worst case scenario, maybe he runs away for a little- he does that when he doesn’t know how to handle things sometimes, he did it after dinner on Friday- but he’ll come back.”

“Maybe,” says Ray. “Maybe he will. I don’t know, Stell, I know he’s crazy about you, but that doesn’t mean he wants to- I don’t know, what are we even talking about here?”

“I’m pretty sure he likes you too,” she says, leaving aside the other question for the moment. She reaches up to press gently on a mark she’s pretty sure she didn’t make on the side of his neck. “Evidence points that way.”

He shrugs. “He was willing to sleep with me once.”

“Ray-”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what that means. We didn’t exactly talk about it beforehand. And it all...it went further that we said it would.”

“Because all of us wanted it to,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, I guess. I just don’t want to lose what we already have because of it, you know? However it works out, that’s the most important thing. If he wants me, or just you, or… I don’t know, any of it. I just…” he sighs, looking away and then back at her. “I just want to keep him.”

“Okay,” says Ray Kowalski.

They both whirl to look at him. He’s leaning uncomfortably in the kitchen doorway, wearing all of his clothes and even his shoes from last night, like he was getting ready to leave. He still has ridiculous bedhead, though, and the wary hope on his face is breaking Stella’s heart.

“Please,” he adds, and Ray meets her eyes for just a second before he turns and crosses the kitchen in four quick steps, backing Ray Kowalski into the doorjamb and kissing him.

It’s a long kiss.

“Okay?” he asks, when they finally break for air.

“Yes,” says Ray. He sounds kind of hoarse. “Yes, okay, whatever you want,” but he’s reaching one hand out for her as he says it, the other still tight on her husband’s shoulder. She lets him pull her in close with just the curve of his arm, as easily as they’ve ever moved across a dance floor. Ray Vecchio takes a step so that there’s room for all three of them, standing there in the doorway.

“We want you to stay,” she says.

***

If you look at it another way, it starts with two kids getting caught up in a bank robbery in 1976.

But that’s just the beginning.


End file.
